Is Canopus ADVC-100 the way to go?

You could always buy or borrow a DV camera and use it. Most good camers have an analogue input and can capture to tape or direct to the PC's hard disk over the Firewire link. This is what the Canopus is doing. You may be able to find a cheap DV Cam that can do this for not much more than the cost of the Canopus Because the compretion is done by hardware there is no stress on the PC. You just need a big fast hard disk. Regards, Owen

Hi About 1) -- There are a few programs that have a workaround for the AVI size limit. One I can recommend is ScenalyzerLive found . About 4) -- No worries :) , capturing is done through firewire, which is definitely not very resource intensive. I have done multiple captures to an old laptop without any problems at all. You will have no dropped frames unless you run an encode in virtualdub with priority class=highest at the same time. About 5) -- Perhaps getting an NT-based OS like Win2k or WinXP would give you more stability overall?? You can always double-boot you know... cheers, -kaitsuburi

Thanks 

Thank you all for your detailed replies. Special thanks to Swan for the point-by-point answers to my questions. I know I will have to eventually give in and upgrade my OS at some point. (Any idea how many years it took to get 98SE to behave?) Just curious Maria why you mentioned XP Professional. I've been on the fence waiting for XP to mature and didn't like some of the stories about Microsoft taking inventory of my hardware configuration and who knows what else. A colleague of mine claimed that the XP Professional version does not require the same re-activation with Microsoft every time you change the configuration of your hardware. Was this the basis of your recommendation or are there other reasons to get the Professional version over the Standard version? I've stayed away from Win2000 because of early driver issues and my addiction to the evolution of gaming engines. (Off subject - Can you play The Pandora Directive on XP?) Meanwhile, I'll check out to see if there are any reports on the Pinnacle Moviebox DV. Let me know how your friend makes out. It will most likely take quite a while to reach the overwhelming positive endorsements for the Canopus ADVC-100 However you are correct, the street prices for the Pinnacle box seem to be about $100 US less than the Canopus ADVC-100. Right now, I'm inclined to go with what works. Ray

Does anyone know if either of these products bypass Macrovision on a commercial VHS tape? Thanks, RObert

I have been reading about the ADVC100 and was wondering what they mean about "connecting to a capture card". Does this do captures by itself or do I still need a capture card? Also what software will I need to make this capture from my satellite receiver via s-video? Thanks

What about filters? With the DV format won't you lose access to all the great avisynth and virtualdub filters? Are there comparable ones for DV? Like decomb, temporal soften, etc...

Yes you can load the files you get from the ADVC into av Avisynth script! Just load the file with the usual "avisource" line and apply all the filters you want! :) Likewise, you can open the files in VirtualDub and edit/filter them as much as you like, providing you captured the file in Type-2 OpenDML format and have a VFW DV codec installed.

Incoming! It's a hijack! 

@JF Sebastian Of course, you can thank other people, such off topics are not bad if it's not used too often ;) . And we all know that Swan is a really patient man :D . @all There are at least half a dozen threads about the ADVC, where various ADVC users write the pros and cons of the card, if you're interested in buying the card, I would suggest you to read it all! Cheers, Ookie.