DV and Canopus ADVC-300?

[akcorcoran]

Hello -

From other posts, you may know that I'm delighted with my purchase of a new Canopus ADVC-300. What I'm wondering is if I should use for DV imports or if I should go right to my iMac? I really purchased the ADVC-300 for analog and making improvements, but know I can do DV as well. I'm guessing I *could* make some picture improvements with the import through that but I do have a brand new iMac with both iMovie and Final Cut Express, so I'm wondering if I'll lose any quality going through ADVC to computer vs direct? Or, if the opposite applies - that I only have improvements to gain b/c of the advc?

thanks!
Alexa

[Steve Grisetti]

If you're coming from a DV source (such as a miniDV camcorder) you won't see any improvements going through your bridge.

The DV that streams from your camcorder is video data, already in computer digital. Whether it comes into a Mac or a PC, it's still exactly the same video data that was created in the camcorder. The data doesn't change, so you can't really improve it.

[akcorcoran]

OK - that helps to know that. So, can I ask the flip question then, can I do harm when using something like a advc-300? I ask b/c my firewire 800 and standard ports are taken up by external HDD and the advc-300 respectively. So, to go DV into Mac, I'd have to unplug canopus each time. there is a dv port on canopus that I can use but I'd only do that if there wasn't a drawback to doing it -

Thx -
Alexa

[Ken Jarstad]

Be aware that Firewire ports on the same hub will share and divide the available bandwidth if the units are powered on - even if they are not being used! That's because multiple Firewire ports are usually fed from one hub.

It isn't exactly clear from your post but you may actually have two Firewire hubs, one providing S800 speed and one providing the more conventional S400 speed. If that is true then the previous paragraph will not apply to you.

BTW, when your ADVC is plugged in and powered on the hub will negotiate with the port and set itself to the S100 speed.

[akcorcoran]

Wow - this is becoming another language to me - but I think I'm getting it. Yes, the iMac does have two Firewire ports - S800 and conventional S400. Former has my external drive plugged in via S800 which makes it nice and speedy! Latter now has the ADVC300 plugged into it. I was just trying to confirm that I should be OK to use the DV input on the ADVC vs going straight into the computer - and that there wouldn't be any quality issues (or there would actually be a benefit). I'm fairly biased towards going for straight connections if I can, but I don't want to be plugging in and taking out the ADVC, especially now that I've learned about needing to truly "power down" everything!

Thx -
Alexa

[Ken Jarstad]

My understanding is that the extra 4-pin DV connection on these units is a pass-through and therefore should not affect video quality. That is the way it is on my Pyro A/V Link.