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  #1  
10-16-2020, 07:59 PM
AndrewW AndrewW is offline
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Hi All,

Just thought I'd share something I'm using now which hopefully helps others.

Problem:
I'm a Mac user - I'd been using the firewire out from a miniDV camera and DV deck to a thunderbolt adaptor and into the MacBook Pro. Final Cut Pro or iMovie allow importing, but it has a very frustrating bug which I suspect will never be fixed - the last file is always left out.

Also, another issue is some miniDV tapes that have a problem where a long clip is constantly split into 1-3sec clips. the importer seems to think it's another clip. so you end up with thousands of 3 sec clips which even when assembled in a timeline, there are a few frames missing in-between each clip.

Bad Fix/Solution:
Using the included AV cable with the handycam, and capturing that analogue signal. Which would increase losses from Digital>analogue>digital conversion.

Final Solution:
I went out on a limb and purchased a Canopus/grass valley ADVC-1000 which is a bi-directional DV-SDI converter.
I like the fact it keeps it a digital signal along the path, and the SDI cables are quite nice to work with, a clean solution and you can run the cables longer.
I use the tiny Blackmagic Mini Recorder which has both SDI and HDMI input, connected to the computer via thunderbolt.
So far it works really well! I'll see If I can add some samples here.

The Canopus is very noisy, it has a horrible blower fan in there that I'd like to replace. The rear DC barrel connecter is an obscure one where the male is a sleeve + pin design. I couldn't find a replacement so I just replaced the female connector on the PCB to a standard 5.5mm design.
the power switch was also not working, which was replaced with a almost perfect match from ebay (alps SDL1P-A TV-3 on-off panel mount power switch 4A 250VAC 2pi Dh) I just had to modify the bottom pins to fit in the PCB.

They seem pretty cheap - only around 70USD 2nd hand.

Only downside is you don't get the metadata associated with the DV clips.

Photo attached of the unit (with some tape holding the power button in when it was broken!)


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  #2  
10-16-2020, 10:27 PM
latreche34 latreche34 is offline
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That's how I capture analog tapes but I'm not sure about DV, I will have to do some reading on how the Canopus 1000 converts DV to lossless AVI.

I assume capturing DV to hard drive as 1:1 then convert to a modern codec in the software domain is better than converting it to lossless AVI in the hardware domain and from there to a modern codec in the software domain. Again depends on how the C1000 does it in the chip, it might be actually better. Would you mind sharing the media info of the files captured by BM SDI to USB dongle?
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10-17-2020, 12:24 AM
AndrewW AndrewW is offline
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Here's a PDF with a basic rundown of functions of the device.

I use Blackmagic media express for capturing, so just limited with what they offer.
I've been experimenting capturing as ProRes LT or ProRes Proxy as I believe they are still a higher mb/s than the original DV stream? Happy to be corrected - my file understanding is limited.
for an easy to play file on the TV, I normally de interlace and export as .mp4 which I use Davinci resolve which likes working with Apple ProRes.

I could capture it as uncompressed 8 or 10 bit, but I didn't think it was necessary considering the compressed nature of DV?


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  #4  
10-17-2020, 02:44 AM
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lordsmurf lordsmurf is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AndrewW View Post
Here's a PDF with a basic rundown of functions of the device.

I use Blackmagic media express for capturing, so just limited with what they offer.
I've been experimenting capturing as ProRes LT or ProRes Proxy as I believe they are still a higher mb/s than the original DV stream? Happy to be corrected - my file understanding is limited.
for an easy to play file on the TV, I normally de interlace and export as .mp4 which I use Davinci resolve which likes working with Apple ProRes.

I could capture it as uncompressed 8 or 10 bit, but I didn't think it was necessary considering the compressed nature of DV?
Some mixed-up concepts here...

uncompressed 4:2:2 = no data compression, no colorspace compression

DV = 5x+ data compression, 4:1:1 NTSC or 4:2:0 colorspace compression. The video artifacts are blocks, and NTSC has 50% destroyed/lost colors (replaced by smears, grays, and hue/tint shifted colors).

VHS is far less than 10-bit, not even 8-bit. In analog>digital equivalency, VHS is like 6-bit dithered color, which you'd often find on budget computer monitors (including IPS displays). It's quite decent bit depth, but with detectable flaws in gradients.

ProRes LT and proxy are somewhat compressed, and don't react well to VHS noise. HQ is better. The main difference is the bitrate. VHS is noise, and noise needs more bits to not artifact.

Got all that?

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  #5  
10-17-2020, 06:34 AM
latreche34 latreche34 is offline
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LS, We are talking about miniDV tapes, I think you are missing the whole point.
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