Capture stops in minutes, defective ADVC110, or what?

[Mazb]

Hello all;
I am trying to capture Hi8 analog tapes to my hard drive, using brand new ADVC110, and the capture process stops anywhere between 2 and 12 minutes.

Do I have a defective ADVC110, based on the following? If not, what is wrong? Please help.

When using WINDV capture software, the capture stops without any error messages.
When using MS Movie Maker, the capture stops with the following message:
One of the devices being used to capture video has been disconnected from your computer. The wizard will now exit.

What I have tried so far:
Two capture software.
Different tapes.
Both firewire ports on the computer.
Two brand new s-video cables.
Yellow RCA video cable.

Details on the equipment (as much as I think might be relevant)
-ADVC110 with its own Canopus power supply
-Sony TRV118 camcorder with mono audio (one audio cable jack which I connect to the left audio channel of the ADVC110)
-Dell Dimension 8400, 3.4Ghz, 2 GB RAM, brand new 500 GB secondary SATA hard drive, 128 MB video card
-WIN XP Home

[GrassValley_BH]

If you are not using a 6-pin to 4-pin Firewire cable, please try disconnecting the power supply for the ADVC and see how things go.

It sounds like the ADVC is losing sync with the video. This can happen if you run into a blank or recorded-over part of tape.

Another thing to try... Put the camera in camera mode and see how long you can capture live footage from the camera (make sure it doesn't go into auto-shutoff).

[Mazb]

Thanks for the reply.

-I am using 6-pin to 6-pin firewire cable. I will disconnect the power supply and report back.

-All the tapes I have and those that I tried are recorded only once. The capture stops regardless of a pause in the tape or not. The capture process stops at different points in time when using the same tapes and the same set-up.

-I will try the live capture and report back.

Thanks again

[kbosward]

First try this: untick the little box in between the Capture and Config buttons in WinDV. (When this box is ticked -- device control enabled -- then WinDV can tell the ADVC-110 to stop if there is a break in the DV stream. It only takes a slight sync glitch in the analog signal to cause a break. Unticking the box disables device control.)

Also, do you have any other devices plugged into a Firewire port (eg. external drive)?

An issue experienced by some was Firewire bus dropouts when using FW800 ports with ADVC units. These were fixed completely by buying a cheap FW400 PCI card (you can get them for around $10 these days).

Ken.

[Mazb]

If you are not using a 6-pin to 4-pin Firewire cable, please try disconnecting the power supply for the ADVC and see how things go.

I tried the 6pin-to-6pin cable without the power supply and had the same problem.
Then I tried a 4pin-to-6pin cable with the power supply, still no success.

Another thing to try... Put the camera in camera mode and see how long you can capture live footage from the camera (make sure it doesn't go into auto-shutoff).

I could not figure out how to do this. With the camcorder in the camera mode, I get no video display on the computer monitor. Probably something dumb I am doing.

First try this: untick the little box in between the Capture and Config buttons in WinDV. (When this box is ticked -- device control enabled -- then WinDV can tell the ADVC-110 to stop if there is a break in the DV stream. It only takes a slight sync glitch in the analog signal to cause a break. Unticking the box disables device control.)

Thanks Ken. I will try this tonight. Do you know of any guides that show what the WINDV config setting should be?

Also, do you have any other devices plugged into a Firewire port (eg. external drive)?

No, only the Canopus unit is connected to the firewire port.

An issue experienced by some was Firewire bus dropouts when using FW800 ports with ADVC units. These were fixed completely by buying a cheap FW400 PCI card (you can get them for around $10 these days).

I don’t know what kind of firewire card I have in my Dell. It came with the computer. I’ll find out and post back. I do have a spare firewire/USB combo card laying around. Should I try installing and trying that out? As to FW400 card you are referring to, is the link below an example of the card type?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815104003

[GrassValley_BH]

Usually, while in Camera mode (the normal recording mode), the A/V output is enabled as well. But it's tough to tell on all cameras. Leave everything connected as-is, and just switch your camera from VTR to Camera mode.

[kbosward]

Do you know of any guides that show what the WINDV config setting should be?

The only guide I know is that which appears on the WinDV home page. Hold your cursor over the config window items on the web page and you will see a tip on what each does.

I set "Discontinuity threshold" to 0 (disabled), "Max AVI size (frames)" to 999999 (allows me to capture up to 11 hours in a single file!), and I leave "Every N-th frame" at 1. Which AVI type (1 or 2) you use will depend on your video editor as some accept only one or the other. However if your editor can accept either, then type-1 AVI is probably best as that is the "native" format produced by the ADVC unit (well, at least that is what my ADVC-300 produces, I presume the ADVC-110 is the same). There is no loss or recompression involved in capturing as type-2 AVI, it's just that WinDV has to do a little extra processing to arrange it differently. See this post for more information.

As to FW400 card you are referring to, is the link below an example of the card type?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16815104003

No I was thinking of something more like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16815282002, but this assumes your computer has PCI slots (the one you looked at was for PCI-Express slot). You will find even cheaper ones at that site. But if you confirm that your Dell has FW800 ports and you have exhausted all other possibilities, then I would definitely try your FW/USB card first.

Ken.

[Mazb]

First try this: untick the little box in between the Capture and Config buttons in WinDV.

hummmm, the box was unticked.

I googled and found some setting recommendations.
What I changed was: I put a tick in the box, changed the AVI type to type 2, and set Discontinuity to 0.

SUCCESS. I captured 2 hours of video without a problem.

I don't know which change made the difference. I will experiment some more to narrow down the culprit setting, and to verify my success with additional tapes.

Big thank you to both kbosward and GrassValley_BH for taking the time with a lot of suggestions. I learned a lot in just 2 days.

Now on with the next challenge. That will be a separate thread