"connection dropout" with ADVC300

[rootsmaneuver]

I'm experiencing "connection dropout" when importing video from VHS tapes to iMovie 6. iMovie stops recording the in signal if the tape gets fuzzy (between scenes and whatnot) and i'm forced to "babysit" the import process, stopping and restarting where it left off. Quite the drag.

anyway to force iMovie or my device into cooperating with me?

Thanks!

[tizoast]

I'm not familiar with iMovie, but I know that Final Cut has an option to stop capturing when it encounters a "dropped frame". Maybe dig around iMovie preferences for something to this effect that you can turn "off".

[davidwsica]

I'm not familiar with iMovie, but I know that Final Cut has an option to stop capturing when it encounters a "dropped frame". Maybe dig around iMovie preferences for something to this effect that you can turn "off".

Did you ever find a solution for this? I think I'm having a similar issue with iMovie 08.

Thanks,
David

[GrassValley_BH]

Dropped frames in the capture application is different from loss of sync at the converter.

When your capture application reports dropped frames for DV capture, this means either the DV source has stopped, or your computer cannot keep up with storing the incoming datastream.

In your case, the ADVC is losing input sync.

When the ADVC has a video input signal and is in Play mode (analog->DV), it will run free-run timecode. Many capture applications depend on running timecode to determine the DV stream is "there" even though the stream can be there even when timecode isn't running.

Anyway, when the ADVC loses video sync (because the VCR hits a point on the tape where there is no recorded sync, or the tape is really bad), it stops running timecode and goes into Stop mode. iMovie is sensing this, and it's stopping the cpature.

A Time-Base Corrector will reconstruct the video sync between the VCR and the ADVC (or built-in like with the ADVC300) and stop the ADVC from losing the video sync.

If you have another VCR, or a device with video/audio pass-through (some TVs do), you could try running the signal through it. Though with most VCRs and TVs, the screen will go blue or green when it loses sync, so you may get flashes of blue or green screens - probably not what you want.