Driving me mad with the ADVC55

[arnottdavies]

Am trying not to throw the ADVC55 out of the window. First from VHS using the yellow/white/red cables into the 55 and then into an imac with imovie via the firewire cable. Seemed to be good. Then the next day it refused to behave.
About one time in ten it works the rest of the time a black and white out of synch picture.
I have tried three VHS recorders and a DVD - the results are again about 1 in 10.
Am I doing something very stupid?
Any ideas - could the unit be faulty?

[kbosward]

Do you have anything else connected to firewire, like an external drive? Can you try it on another computer?

Ken.

[arnottdavies]

Nothing else connected - ony have an old G3 otherwise that would probably have heart attack and does not have any video editing software.

[kbosward]

Are you using the same VHS tape on all occasions (that is, the same tape only works 1 in 10 attempts), or is it the case that one tape works and others don't?

Have you tried different cables?

If your G3 is running Mac OSX 10.2 or later then you can use myVCR to capture the DV stream. I have not tried myVCR on anything but an iMac Intel myself but user reviews say it works successfully on old Macs.

Failing that, find a friend who will let you plug your ADVC110 into their computer (whether PC or Mac) to verify that it is not a problem with your Mac. Alternatively, if you have a DV camera or can borrow one, see if you can capture from that into your Mac.

Ken.

[arnottdavies]

SImple solution in the end

Shame to admit - helpful friends - I had the PAL/NTSC toggle off not on!
Too much fiddling!
Works now!