Canopus ADVC-50 Capture Card

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Canopus ADVC-50

DV/Firewire
DV Converter
Analog VideoIn

Win95? Win98 Win2K WinXP
Vista? NT4? MAC Linux?
*based on user reports.

PCI

$200

9.4/10
40 votes

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Description (from the manufacturer site)

Analog to DV converter ideal for video editing applications.
Convert your S-VHS, Hi8 or other analog video tapes to DV in one simple step using the ADVC-50. The ADVC-50 is compatible with all OHCI and DV capture cards for Macintosh or PC. No need to install drivers or any applications.

ADVC-50 perfectly compliments EZDV, DVRaptor-RT or any OHCI / DV capture card providing both analog input and easy cable access.

Easy to install
ADVC-50 allows convenient access to video cabling when fitted into the computers 5-¼ inch Bay. Alternatively the ADVC-50 can be installed internally as a standard PCI card. The ADVC-50 unit uses the PC\'s standard 4-pin connection for power supply (bay installation).

Proven DV codec technology
Canopus\'s proprietary DV technologies provide the best picture quality preservation.

Locked audio support
Other converters can lose audio/video sync when converting analog video for longer periods of time. The ADVC-50 is the first inexpensive DV converter that supports locked audio when converting from analog to digital, assuring perfect audio and video synchronization.

> Award winning DV Codec for best-quality conversion.
> Locked audio support
> Convenient cabling access via 5 ¼\" PC bay
> Both NTSC and PAL compatible
> Windows and Mac OS compatible

Visit manufacturer's site

Comments

46 comments, Showing 1 to 25 comments

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Went to Canopus support. They advised me to check my OS whether sp1 or sp2. As it turned out it was sp1 and so I downloaded a patch for it from Canopus driver downloads and it worked perfectly.
Excellent video and excellent audio sync.

Comments posted by Abed Hatab from United Arab Emirates, April 06, 2006:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 10 of 10.

Did not function right out from the box.

Installed it in a drive bay and connected the 5v supply in the back.
Removed jumper #1 because I work with PAL.
Connected the video and audio from my VCR to the RCA plugs in front.
Connected the 4-pin DV connector in the front of the advc50 to my PC IEEE 6-pin connector using the supplied cable.
Started play in the VCR and started windows movie maker2 in record mode, but ... nothing.

Any ideas before I return it to the shop?

Thanx

Comments posted by Abed from United Arab Emirates, February 27, 2006:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: No rating.

Hi,

I Think that Canopus ADVC-50 is the best capture way, analog/digital. I tried a lot of capture cards,and this is the best one but I like to know how can I make video with the same quality like a good VHS video, or a true DVD movies. I have also a Digital 8 camcorder (Sony TRV 140 E) and I can't make the final movies with a perfect quality, like a DVD or a good VHS.
My PC is a Pentium IV 2.8(HT) with 3 HDs SATA and 1000 GBs RAM, to make movies. I think this is enought, but I can't make movies in MPEG2(DVD) with a perfect quality.
How can I do to improve the final video?

Thank's

Comments posted by António Monteiro from Portugal, December 26, 2005:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 10 of 10.

I live in NTSC zone ,but have PAL VHS.
It's very good item, very good quality of capturing.

Comments posted by Shmyak from United States, December 12, 2005:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 10 of 10.

Further to my comments below (again), I have the ADVC-50 now working flawlessly on XP by running the basic operating system only i.e. NO XP Service Pack updates have been installed on this PC.

The black screen bug issue (which usually required a re-boot) is no longer an issue.

Comments posted by Cole from United Kingdom, December 02, 2005:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: No rating.

I have found it below(03 December 2003), I have the same problem, where is answear for this problem?

I installed the card in a spare 5.25" bay for convenience, which is great. It does a great job capturing-when it works. The problem I have been experiencing is this: I can see and hear the video when I first start the capture application (Adobe Premiere 6.0 or scenalizer). I can capture a clip, but after I stop the capture process, the video and sound go away. If I want to capture another clip, I have to power down the capture card to 'reset' it.

Thanks, Adam

Comments posted by Adam from Poland, September 23, 2005:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP? Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 10 of 10.

This is a great capture card.
I bought it based on recommendations found in the comments below--here are my $0.02.
I am capturing primariy PAL VHS tapes (I live in NTSC) to DVD. The card accepts both NTSC or PAL inputs, which is important to me because the PAL->NTSC convertor in my world-wide VCR in marginal at best.
The card was able to capture the raw PAL signal which improved quality by 100%.
For those who claim that the quality of the input is exactly the same as the output, that's not quite true.
It all depends on the MPEG2 encoder you used to convert the DV video to DVD.
If you use the Canopus Procoder, which is especially good at this task, your DVD will look 98% percent as good as the original signal. In fact, those who have seen my DVD/VHS captures have not believed that the original source was a tape, but save up your $$$ for the software.
I think, though, for most this capture card will be highly satisfactory.
And yes, jumper 6 turns off macrovision. I haven't tried it yet but would like to put a switch on the front of the computer to turn this jumper on and off remotely. At the moment I am using the card in the 5.25" bay and so have quick access, but I would like to install it as a PCI card in the future and avoid the hassle everytime a change is necessary.
I connect the card at the moment through the external 4-pin DV/firewire port to a 6-pin firewire port on my computer and so far this works fine.
I used DVapp to capture, a great freeware program with a timer. Recommended above WinDV and Stoik Capturer, but you try for yourself.
Bought in used on e-bay for $120.

Comments posted by DS from United States, May 22, 2005:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 10 of 10.

I picked this up off ebay primarily to combat audio sync problems I had. I have a Hauppauge Wintv card that I like, but get audio sync trouble with occasionally (even after trying pretty much everything to correct it, settings, dedicated formatted capture drive, etc.) I paid $150 which is a little steep right now but it was the only one on ebay at the time. Installation was easy and I've been using WinDv for my captures. Initally I did a 2 hour capture without any dropped frames or audio sync problems. I then did a 6 hour VHS capture and maintained perfect sync. The ADVC-50 holds a resolution advantage over my Wintv card (I can prove it with screen caps). Color information cannot be as accurate however in theory since this is a DV device (4:1:1). Whether or not this is noticable, I have yet to tell. I've also had no problem with macrovision and I haven't removed any jumpers. I am not proclaiming this as the greatest capture device on earth, but it DID solve my sync problems. I've tried to steer clear of DV devices for a long time, but I am happy with this purchase. I recommend it, and if you can buy it from a retail store with a return policy I insist you try it.

Comments posted by fmctm1sw from Japan, May 01, 2005:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K WinXP? Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 9 of 10.

Whenever I go to buy something I usually "over shop" and try not to "pull the trigger" until I'm sure I'll get something that I'll be happy with. I started looking for a capture card and was puzzled - EVERY card I read about seemed to be a failure for most people that bought them. I eventually ran into the reviews here and settled on the ADVC-50 card based on reviews. I thought about the ADVC-100 but knew I just needed to capture my VHS tapes to AVI (then put the files on to DVD's) for later use. (The ADVC-100 will allow you to send digital back to tape which I didn't need. Why spend $100 more?)

I used "Stoik Capturer" to capture in 700 meg files and put 6 files to a DVD disk. Stoik will capture and split files in different sizes - Very handy. I hooked this up and was able to capture video from all 25 VHS tapes (most two hours long) WITHOUT one dropped frame !!! PERFECT RESULTS !!! Perfect sync of audio with video.

I rarely write reviews but this product deserves a response. I am 100% happy with this product. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Comments posted by tryguy from United States, April 27, 2005:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 10 of 10.

The Canopus ADVC-50 works flawlessly.

I picked up this device to replace the highly inferior AVerMedia DVD Easymaker USB (see my comment here: http://www.videohelp.com/capturecards.php?CaptureCardRead=333#comments).

Perfect audio/video sync for movies exceeding 2 hours. Excellent video quality matching that of the input signal precisely.

This worked as soon as it was installed under my WinXP SP1. I did not have to install any patch files from Canopus. XP recognized it immediately as a DV "Camera" and away I went with capturing (used WinDV to capture).

Also, I have the ADVC-50 connected internally to a Koutech PCI firewire card (IO-PFW310).

Very, very happy.

Comments posted by JJ from United States, March 15, 2005:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 10 of 10.

Update to my comments below:

"White Noise"

This appears to have been an issue with an old VCR. I have now got a more up to date VCR and a white noise signal doesn't seem to cause the ADVC-50 any problems.

"Black Screen"

I have now updated to Sevice Pack 2 on XP and the ADVC-50 has not crashed on me once in the last two weeks, even when changing from one capture program to another which used to be fatal.

Comments posted by Cole from United Kingdom, February 13, 2005:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP? Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: No rating.

I did often wonder if I made the right decision about getting the ADVC-50 over the ADVC-100, but after reading the posts below, I know that I have done the right thing as I don't have any intention of putting any of my captures back to VHS.

I am running XP with SP1.

> The ADVC-50 has been the singularly best peripheral I have purchased for my PC(UK £160 aprox.).
> Capture quality is superb and have only ever had a dropped frame if there are any "white noise" interferences (see below).
> Have used this to capture from VHS (original reason for purchase) but have added a Digital Reciever to the set up and the quality from that is unbelievabley good.

A few points to note:
> My ADVC-50 doesn't seem to like "white noise" too much. I have had occasions where this has caused a dropped frame or frozen the capture, requiring a reboot. Thankfully though this has been rare and tend to avoid letting a VHS tape run that far while still capturing.
> As it stands, the ADVC-50 is not recognised by Virtualdub, but other capture programs, such as WMM2, Dvapp, Dvio and Edit Studio don't have any problems.
> Occasionally, the ADVC-50 doesn't get recognised by XP after boot up. This is solved by unplugging the Firewire cable, leaving it for a few minutes and plugging back in. This can take two or three goes.
> Some bundled Canopus capture program would have been nice and I am surprised that there isn't a small stand alone capture program available from Canopus.

For the above reasons, I have only given nine out of ten, but I have converted hours and hours of capture to VCD, xVCD and DVD. I am very happy with the ADVC-50.

Highly recommended.

Comments posted by Cole from United Kingdom, January 08, 2005:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 9 of 10.

This is the best conversion I have used. I have used the all in wonder and the pixel view xcapture card, this card blows those cards away. This is the single best investment anyone who does videography or just to convert a vhs to dvd with editing options. As a side note I use vegas video 4.o and dvd architect 1.0 which is another great piece of software. would buy both products again.

Comments posted by Adam from United States, December 20, 2004:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 10 of 10.

Unable to get Canopus - after much trying - to supply a .pdf of the "User Manual" for the ADVC50.

Now that its working its really good. I am quite happy. One issue i would like to mention . . .related to the "must use" Firewire connection.

The firewire pci card was not seeing the ADVC50 until i made a hole in the back of the PC case, passed the cable out through it, and connected the card to an EXTERNAL socket of the Firewire port . . I mean WHO would have thought of THAT ???

Once I had doen this XP instantly recognised the card. So off we go and not a dropped frame in sight after hours and hours of vhs capture. Great pictures, great sound.

Comments posted by doug from Australia, December 07, 2004:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 9 of 10.

Computer set up: Windows XP SP1, 1394filter.exe (patch from Canopus website), Pentium III 800 MHz, ADVC-50 internally mounted in a 5.25" bay and connected to a generic Firewire card through an internal 3' wire, 2 40GB hard drives (NTFS-ed for the >4GB files captured), HP 300i DVD writer 4x

Software setup:
Capture - ULead Video Studio 7SE (came free with ADVC-50)
Converting from AVI to MPEG2 - TEMPGenc 2.5+ Encoder
DVD Authoring - TEMPGenc DVD Author
DVD Writing - TEMPGenc DVD Author

I read through all of these posts several times until I decided which hardware/software to buy. The ADVC-50 works as advertised with the 1394filter.exe pre-installed. It took <2 minutes to unzip and install. I got the 1394filter from somebody at the Canopus technical support site. I couldn't find the patch so I e-mailed them and was sent the patch as an attachment the next day.

There seems to be no concise, 1-stop place to figure out how to do these conversions, so here's my 2 cents' worth:

After you buy all the hardware (about $250) and software (about $75) you can use the ADVC-50 to convert analog to digital via the frontloading 5.25" bay (easy method) or the internally mounted PCI slot (hard to get to). There is no "power" button on the ADVC-50 to let you know it's ready to work. You just start up your capture software and hit "play" on your camcorder (VHS-C, in my case), followed by clicking "capture" on the screen. Then it puts the file (AVI format) wherever you want it. Note: make sure you "NTFS" your hard drive because FAT32 cannot capture files greater than 4GB. I NTFS-ed my second 40 GB drive and you can mix and match with FAT32 drives. A typical 30 minute tape takes 6.2 GB of storage.

After capture you get to spend a long time converting it to MPEG-2 format for the DVD. My computer is the slowest the vendor recommends at 800 MHz and requires 6 hours to convert 1 hour of AVI over to MPEG-2. I saw in forum reviews that TEMPGenc was very fast compared to other software. Well, my computer still takes a long time to convert, but I don't know if that is a function of 800MHz or TEMPGenc.

Next, I use TEMPGenc DVD Author to make the various files required for the DVD. It also allows you to make the cute little track titles and chapter headings. You can cut out video with this software, too. After it's done authoring (approximately 12 minutes) it will pop up a DVD writing tool which seems to work fine. It takes ~20 minutes to actually burn the DVD.

And then it's finally over. Total time for a 1 hour VHS-C conversion: 8 hours. Only 59 more tapes left...

Comments posted by jim arturs from United States, July 24, 2004:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 10 of 10.

Canopus ADVC-50 it's the Best One! I tried a lot of capture cards (Pinnacle PCTV, DC 10 plus, Studio MP 10 etc...)and none is compared with the Canopus ADVC 50. It's perfect, the image is magnificent and the audio it's completely synchronized with video. It's a video converting professional.The price is not very expensive, here im Portugal costs 250 €.

Comments posted by António Monteiro from Portugal, June 04, 2004:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98 Win2K? WinXP? Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 10 of 10.

This device is awesome, I bought it a few months back and have used it to convert Beta, VHS and live satellite to digital. Zero dropped frames the quality is exact from the source media, and no audio/video sync issues. This device cant be beat, if you are thinking about getting one, stop and just get it you wont be sorry!

Comments posted by thshdwknws from United States, May 30, 2004:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 10 of 10.

Bought the ADVC-50 off ebay. I had some initial problems where the OS wouldn't see the card. Sometimes the card would magically appear and I could capture until I rebooted - then back to square 1. I installed the patches, the VIA patches and all recommended software updates - to no avail. Finally got some files from Canopus and the card finally shows up every time.
The video quality is excellent - at least as good as my source tape which is what I expect. It produces very clean video and S9 and Liquid Edition work well with it.
I am very pleased with product and highly recommend it to anyone looking for an affordable analog to dv converter.

Comments posted by Jim from United States, May 28, 2004:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 9 of 10.

I love it. After a year struggling with an ati AIW 128 pro and a hauppage wintv go (which ironically I actually got working well just before I bought the canopus) the ease of using this just floors me. Had a few initial problems with winXP connection, took me a few hours to get it to connect right, but now works perfectly.
The removing Jumper 6 macrovision fix IS true, it does work. I tested it on some videos I previously had not captured due to macrovision.
True, this card is not as fully featured as the 100, but for those who want it only for computer related capture, it's perfect.

Comments posted by katie from United States, May 28, 2004:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 10 of 10.

Very satisfied, great card, and no problems.

Comments posted by Joe from Canada, March 30, 2004:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 10 of 10.

Here's my experience with the ADVC-50...

I have a generic Firewire card and have my ADVC-50 mounted in one of my spare 5.25" drive bays and interconnected internally to my Firewire card using a 3 foot Firewire cable.

My computer is Pentium 4 [2 GHz] running XP.

At first I had to reboot my computer everytime that I wanted to capture. This problem disappeared after applying the XP patch from the Canopus website.

Since then, I have converted about 35 hours of VHS program from taped TV specials.

Results:

0 dropped frames and Audio/ Video in perfect sync!

Highly recommended.

Comments posted by a2dconverterguy from Canada, March 28, 2004:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 10 of 10.

I've4 been using this card for a few months now, and have had 0 problems. Windows 98SE, Vegas 4 for capture and editing, Canopus procoder for MPEG encoding. I've never had an audio/video synch problem, quality is always identical to original tape. You can find the academic version for $135...

Comments posted by Gillespie from United States, March 01, 2004:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98 Win2K? WinXP? Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 10 of 10.

First off I knocked off ONE point because I had to download a patch to make it work with WindowsXP. Shame on them for not advertising it or making it easily accessible on their website.

Fighting with a crappy BT8X8 card for a year or more, I got this outta frustration and has been working like a champ thru thick and thin. PAL, NTSC, DV/VHS it rules!

Comments posted by axolotls from United States, February 18, 2004:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 9 of 10.

I have found this unit to be excellent in video quality. I have been using it to convert PAL tapes to NTSC DVD's via TMPGenc. The only problem I have seen (my brother has the same problem with is ADVC 100)is after capture and closing the capture program, upon restarting capture it fails to start. I tried all the Canopus fixes for XP but my brother runs 2000 and also has it. What I did to solve it is added a momentary switch to the +5 supply to the unit. This resets the unit and works everytime. My brother just unplugs his supply to do the same thing. I am surprised others haven't seen this.

Comments posted by Jim Robbins from United States, February 18, 2004:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 9 of 10.

Bought this card on the recommendation of a friend, who basically advised 'don't mess about - convert to dv (it's easier to edit) - buy a card that doesn't need drivers ( hardware conversion) - buy a card with locked audio - in short, buy a Canopus card'

I bought the ADVC50 based on that advice, and haven't looked back. Superb capture at full resolution, no dropped frames, perfect audio synch.

There is the famous XP SP1 bug to cope with ( it's all to do with 1394 drivers, apparently) but it's no big deal to get round, and should be fixed when SP2 arrives.

Anyway, I can't really blame Canopus for a Microsoft bug!

Hence a 10 - brilliant piece of kit!

Comments posted by pippas from Other, January 10, 2004:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 10 of 10.

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Feature
What kind of main capture features it supports
Analog VideoIn = Analog composite or/and SVHS video input
Video Card = If it is a Video Card/Graphic Card
Tv Tuner = Built-In TV-Tuner
Digital TV = Built-In Digital TV-Tuner
DV/Firewire = DV/Firewire/i.Link input
DV Converter = Analog composite or/and SVHS video input and converts to DV video
MPEG1 hardware = Capture directly MPEG1(VCD) video using hardware*
MPEG2 hardware = Capture directly MPEG2(SVCD and DVD) video using hardware*
MJPEG hardware = Capture directly to MJPEG using hardware*
MPEG4 hardware = Capture directly to MPEG4(DivX,Xvid) video using hardware*
* = Most capture cards can capture to this format using software but it usually requires a very fast computer, if it supports realtime capturing it uses the capture cards hardware and it doesn't require a very fast computer and you may get better quality but less options/settings than software capturing.

Compatibility
What Operating System our users have reported that it works on, Win95=Works ~~Win95~~=Does not work Win95?=Not tested This is user based.

Cnx = Connection
What type of connection the capture device has to the computer, PCI, AGP, USB1/1.1/2, DV or PCMCIA.

Price
The price in US dollar.

Rating
The first rating is based on a weighted rank (the true Bayesian), it requires at least 5 votes to get a weighted rating.
The second rating between the ( ) is a normal average rating.

Comment
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