Is ADVC300 suitable for my purpose?

[rhubear]

I am setting up a hardware (ADVC300?) and software (Linux capture & editing) solution to "remaster" VHS tapes onto DVD.

I read on the Canopus Website (http://www.canopus.com/products/ADVC300/index.php) that the ADVC300 ---

"Featuring high-quality image enhancement technology including digital noise reduction and image stabilization using Line Time Base Correction (LTBC)."

Later on the page says that the package contents includes ----

"Picture Controller Application CD-ROM"

Now, I'm intending to connect this device to a Linux box (using Lives app or similar) which seems to take any dv or hdv source.

The reason I'm interested in the ADVC300 rather than a lower model is for the picture/audio cleaning/stabilisation mentioned above. Its always a bonus to have hardware try to auto clean video rather than manually running software filters on the content.

I have 2 questions regarding the ADVC300 --

1. Does the Picture Controller software do the cleaning/filtering advertised, or is it done via embedded software as I assumed?

2. I am currently putting VHS video through an ICOS Macromaster Digital box for cleaning signal (doesn't clean much at all) and stripping Macromaster encryption off.
(www.im-uk.net/dvd/products/mmdigital.html)

Elsewhere in this forum there is a comment that the ADVC300 cannot "clean" a DVD which has been previously written to from an old VHS (burning the noise onto the DVD). I assume that my Macromaster will be refreshing the VHS signal, possibly "cleaning" it so that the ADVC300 also will not recognise any picture noise.

I was going to daisy chain the two boxes together (why not). I'm now pondering whether that would work at all?

I assume the ADVC would not remove any Macrovision encryption? Any conversions I would be doing would be "backing up" owned VHS to DVD so that copyright is maintained.

Can anyone comment on the ADVC300 for my purposes?

Thanks!
Rupert

[GrassValley_KH]

The picture controller software is not a mandatory requirement to perform the cleaning - the unit is also controllable with the provided buttons on the unit itself. It's just that the software app that does 'remote' control (via USB) is not supported under Linux.

[rhubear]

Thanks for the reply KH.

To clarify the button controls on the ADVC300... you mention in your post that there are picture cleaning "gain" type controls on the unit (as opposed to via the software).

On the pics of the unit, I only see the analog/digital select button. All other items on the casing are AV cable terminals.

Also, I would dearly like to know how much "noise" can be eliminated? By "noise" I mean if I have a video recorded from TV with either "snow" on the picture, or worse, lines across the picture, will the ADVC300 totally get rid of the extra rubbish on the picture or go some way towards clearing it up?
In other words, can the 300 clear up a messy picture, or just tweak a few out-of-place whatever-you-call-its from the screen?

If the 300 would not clear up all the mess from an old VHS picture, can the captured picture still be filtered on a software program like Windows Adobe Premiere? Maybe the fact that I don't know much about how the technology works prevents me from making sense here.... I am scraping around to try to verbalise my questions.....

[kbosward]

As you guessed, the Picture Controller application does not do any actual "cleaning", it simply allows remote control of the settings of the ADVC300 unit. As KH mentioned you can adjust the settings directly on the ADVC300 unit itself using the buttons.

No cleaning can produce a perfect signal from a bad source. All it can do is improve things a little and perhaps mask some of the noise. You can see some examples of cleaned videos in this post.

Ken.