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My 4 year old PC crashed a while back. Buggy Gigabyte motherboard. That system had a ATI AIW 9000 video board which allowed me to plug in my old Hi-8 videocam using S-Video connections.

Which means my PC specs listed in profile are out of date for now.

Bought a re-built PC which has a ATI Radeon X300/X550/X1050 video board that does NOT have a dongle (and therefore no S-Video connection) to get me through the next 12 monthes or so. Using XP Home SP3, Intel MB and 3.00 ghz chip, 3 gigs RAM.

Can someone recommend a good, external analog capture device? I lost several video projects (in part or all) with the crash and need to re-capture them.

TIA for any recommendations . . .

This depends on your budget of course...

If you want a good reliable capture device, I highly recommend one of Canopus, like the ADVC 110. Not only does it allow transferring from analog devices such as VCRs, and Hi-8 camcorders, but Digital devices, should you upgrade to a newer camcorder.

Now the real nice thing is that it connects to your PC using Firewire, which means that the ADVC 110 does the analog to digital conversion. This provides less stress on your PC, and allows you to edit in the best possible format DV (avi)...

There's others like the EasyCap, much less expensive, but you're very limited in what it allows. Your PC must handle the analog to digital conversion, which means more stress on your PC at capture time, greater risk for problems..

What type of camcorder do you have? If it allows pass-thru you can connect your VCR to the camcorder and capture that way.

Thanks Vidoman and Black Lab!

You guys have always come through for me when I have questions.

I'm using a Sony Hi-8 analog only. No pass-thru capability. It was 10 years old this past summer. Time to make sure verything is digitzed before I retire it.

I recall the number of times that Canopus have been mentioned, but didn't know if it was still pretty much the top of everyone's list or not, much less what model. Yea, it's a bit pricey but it's something I can use on different systems without tearing the guts out. That's worth the price alone!

Thanks, y'all!

Another cheaper alternative, though still around $100, is the Adstech DVD Xpress DX2 (note the DX2). It has an on-board chip like the Canopus, but this one does NOT capture to DV/AVI. Instead, it captures to DVD-compliant mpeg-2. But the chip does the work so again, like the Canopus, no extra demand is made on your computer resources. It also does not allow capture using Video Studio. However, it comes with an excellent capture program called CapWiz. So you can capture using that, and simply open the captured files in VS for editing.

Thanks, Ken!

I understand all too well about a capture device not working with VS. I first got VS ver. 3 when I bought a Dazzle 10 years ago. Captured great to MPEG-1 using it's own software, but never could get it to work with VS. After much hair pulling, I stumbled across the fact the captured MPEG-1s could be edited in VS.

Sorry, I do want to capture to DV-AVI. Should have mentioned that.

How's the summer down there, Ken?

Starting to get very warm -- it was 35 Celsius yesterday in Canberra (nearly 100 F) which is normal for this time of year -- though I am currently cooler at my beach house!! Going back to Canberra tomorrow, though...

Blow some of that hot air this way Ken... Yesterday it was about 65¢XF, until about 7pm, then it dropped, and continued to drop down to around 15¢XF with a 35mph N, wind, so windchill is around the big fat 0, if not below..

Today it is managing to get to about 28¢XF... Below is a screenshot of my desktop weather gadget, supplied by a local TV station..

Well vidoman your in the right place, just go put your red shoes on, tap your heals three times & im sure you will be transported to OZ in full color Oh dont forget to pick up Toto
Ops sorry too many films over the xmas hols I must stop watching TV

I also recommend the ADVC-110 for reliability. You rarely hear problems reported about this series (except for price ) whereas many of the others do appear to give problems.

As for weather, you can see my weather station at http://www.cypenv.org/weather/index.php

Thanks for the add-on recommendation of the ADVC-110, Devil!

Has anyone tried the the ADVC-55? Maybe I'm too tired tonight, but I can't tell the difference between that and the ADVC-110.

Anyone have more info?

TIA,

LGO

As the number implies, the 55 can do only half what the 110 can do!!!!

Seriously, the 55 is a capture only device, while the 110 is two-way. This means that you can output DV video to a TV monitor or any other analogue TV device, so that you can see what your project looks like on a real TV with the overscan and limited colour range. This is very different from what you see on a preview screen. Wouldn't be without it!