ADVC-300 software for MacOS Catalina?
 

Hi, Just purchased a used ADVC-300 to convert VHS tapes.

I am running MacOS Catalina 10.15.7.

Do I need to install the Picture Controller software and something else to get this to work or could I import into Adobe Premiere Pro directly w/o anything else?

Not quite sure what I need. Thank you in advance for your help.

Ouch. That unit tends to make video worse than it actually is. All of the other ADVC are better: 50, 55, 100, 110. But even that is relative, all are crummy. For NTSC, the quality loss is major, destroys color info. For PAL, passable, like DVD MPEG compression. But still not great.

10.15+ broke stuff, due to Quicktime changes.

Up to 10.14, we had some good options for capture hardware and software, but not now. When I get my new M2 Mini, I'll be researching what will work on modern Mac systems.

Maybe, but not much better. I bought a new 110 about 10 years ago, I only used it a few times limiting myself to making tests which turned out to be disappointing in terms of quality (I'm in Italy, PAL region, PC user) and then never used again because it is a "color eater" as well as both CVBS and YC video signal. it appears to add a transparent sheen over the video. Now it rests in peace in its cardboard box ...it could always be useful, you never know... The strong point of these boxes is that compared to many small boxes that existed at the time, they manage to keep audio and video in sync, they are made to acquire mainly in DV. They are (were) handy for viewing timeline video from Premiere, Vegas, and other NLE editors on a real external TV Monitor (not PC monitor).
Obviously, excluding the 300, all the others models need a TBC upstream

That's where you're mistaken. The 300's "TBC" is a nothing, extremely weak, based on known flawed chips. As mentioned, the 300 often makes image quality worse. Why, you ask? The "TBC" (if you can even call it that) gets confused, screwed with the signal. Additionally, it has some "always on" filters, that are never truly "off" when set as such on the unit.

Canopus was a marketing machine when the ADVC line was invented, and video quality was not primary, probably not even secondary. Just flood the market with BS, and hope suckers consumers believe it. That mostly ended when Grass Valley bought out Canopus, and GV retired all but the 50/100 line (aka 55/110 was GV for a short time). GV gutted Canopus for the few core products that were actually good.

Again, that was pure marketing. Canopus never truly understood DV, and they made claims on "audio lock" that didn't exist. "audio lock" was indeed a feature of higher end broadcast DV, but not consumer DV25, which is what ADVC boxes were.

These boxes do often lose sync, still to this day, in workflow that lack any meaningful TBC, preferably an actual frame sync TBC. I have 100 and 300 units here for testing, and can somewhat easily recreate scenarios where sync is lost.

Yes, that was an actual advantage of these. That weird analog+digital era of the late 90s and early 2000s. Again, ADVC is 1990s tech, Pentium II minimum req, Pentium III suggested. Pre-dates P4 from 2001.

Agree on everything. I know very well what you said.

Regarding TBC: I only own For-A TBCs from the 1990s in perfect condition, so I know very well the differences between a serious TBC that I paid (new) more than a new car and the "pseodo TBCs" that are being passed off these days for this kind of service.
Mind you, these 30-year-old or true Professional or Broadcast grade TBs, even modern ones, if not WELL maintained and well calibrated and well adjusted, are far worse than a 100 euro or dollar box sold on amazon today.

Unfortunately, those who were not in the trade in the days of advanced analog will always have a lot of difficulty understanding, because there is a lot of theory, a lot of dedicated machines, complex and very very expensive systems that no longer exist or are hard to find.

I personally would never use a 300 Canopus, because I come from the broadcast world, Anything that is not broadcast to me seems to be toys. I know, I am wrong to say this, but unfortunately the differences are there ! ...maybe it is also a professional distortion).

But those who want to make their own "video transfers" at home, unfortunately, are currently forced to accept many compromises and try to do the best they can. They are not at fault if they try their best and use what is there or has been around after 30 years. Especially if they have not been of the video job experience (not videotape users, but of the video job experience!).

The only sure thing is this: it is not a game at all, and done seriously, for those who are not already equipped it is also very expensive.

Ah, kindred spirits then? :)

So much nonsense info here, right? I bought several of my TBCs new 15-20 years ago, and the rest used (generally from the original owner) about 10-15 years ago. So I know how these units should perform in peak condition.

I'd suggest that 99%+ of units are irreparably failed in the 2020s. For starters, many of the rackmount "pizza box" style TBCs handled consumer formats poorly. But even when a decent model comes along, like the i.Den IVT-7, the unit is trashed irreparably, usually abused by the broadcaster/studio.

On one hand, I miss video (and photo and audio) from those days. But then again, not so much? I think the main difference is that you had a dedicated hobby and pro crowd then, and good info was the norm. Sharing tips, excitement over new gear, etc. At some point, the masses entered. Making video/photo/audio more available is good, but the bad side is all the bogus nonsense that came with it. Abusing jargon, taking things out of content, snake oil products sold for pennies, etc.

I come from the serious hobby side in the 90s. But several coworkers (2nd job) and friends worked at small studios or cablecos, usually more advanced than myself back then. I learned from them (and on my own), and eventually surpassed their knowledge and skills (their words, not mine). Hobbyists and pros tended to appreciate the same gear. Sometimes the analog-era pros poo-poo'd good gear (prosumer items), but they also poo-poo'd consumer media entirely. Hobbyists blended pro tools with consumer formats. And yet, devices like ADVC-300 were consider toys/junk by both crowds. It was newbies that were suckered by the POS items.

I don't think that's true for this one reason: resale. Buy it, use it, resell it, it holds value. And accounting for inflation (~20 years worth), and remembering the MSRPs we paid back then, the gear is cheaper now than it was then. Sure, for some years, the gear was out of favor, and sold for a deep discount. But over the longer term, it's not expensive compared to historical norms.

Additionally, as an example, people often spend $1k on a cell phone that loses all value within months, and is discarded in 2-3 years. So I'm not really sympathetic to this idea that "OMG, expensive!" No cupcake, than dumb phone you have stuck in your hands is expensive. This gear is a bargain. I'm sure somebody will chime in "but my phone is cheap" to which I quickly respond that they have waste elsewhere in their life. If not something new and shiny, then vices like smokes, boos, blow, hookers, whatever. There's always something that causes $K to vanish, often foolishly, negative economics. Video gear isn't that.

Priorities. Do you want your VHS memories to look like garbage? Or do you want your children and grandchilden to be able to actually see your faces, see what was happening in the video? Because the wrong gear obliterates these details. Making mush is easy, making quality video takes a bit of effort and temporary expense.

To answer your basic question:

You do not need the picture controller software (although it make adjustments much easier). The ADVC-300 setting can be made using the buttons on the box. This is documented in the user manual. The Picture controller software and manual can be d/l from the Grass Valley web page but you have to have an account there and register the device. The box generally looks like like a Sony camcorder to the iEEE1394 ingest software.

Not sure which versions of MAC os it supports gives it is a legacy product. The attached discusses Firewire400 vs Firewire800.

That's what I was suggesting in my first reply. Each successive Mac OS has dropped support for legacy items, especially video. Not only that, but software has dropped as well. I've experienced this, and read about it many times. Too many times.

So we need to know what this OP is using, exactly.

My other point, which became a slight OT, was whether this device is wise to use at all. :hmm:

Maybe. As mentioned above and in many other threads your results will be less than optimum. And it will depend on your source material and the signal chain ahead of the ADVC. If it works with your Mac, give it a try. If your are satisfied with the results declare victory and move on but recognize you could do better, and your material may need a good external TBC.

The Grass Valley web forums include a section on the ADVC's but not much recent activity there because these are legacy products and most of their current capture/edit solutions rely on other capture/ingest products. They have even dropped IEEE1394/iLink/firewire support from their latest NLE given that Microsoft and PC builders dropped IEEE1394 support a few years ago. (it was mainly used with DV & HDV. gear.)

The ADVC300 manual is attached.

The attraction of the DV format was it did not use interframe compression so it required lass processing power and enabled editing on the PCs of that day while providing a moderate data rate and file size. The DV format has adequate bandwidth and bit depth for VHS/S-VHS. The rub is in the lossy compression and individual implementations.

To add to the above:

Preview results on a TV, not a tiny preview window smaller than a cell/mobile phone. DV adds blocks, butchers color. This can be missed when viewing a few inches (or cm) in size, but obvious on a HDTV, even to half blind old grandmas. Don't make a decision on "is it good enough" at the wrong size!

I'd actually suggest the main attraction of DV was file size, in the 1990s, when a "large" hard drive was less than 10gb (aka, the size of two blank DVD-Rs). CPU was also too slow at the time. This is truly ancient tech. Lots of quality compromises were made. And to top it off, DV was never intended as a conversion format, only shooting format. The conversion was extremely lossy, unlike the shooting (somewhat lossy, but faults could be filtered and hidden).

I'm fairly certain Premiere Pro (sub cloud) long ago dropped support like this, but not 100% sure. NLE capturing was always bad anyway, never suggested.

Ugh! I was able to get it to capture VHS w/o software directly into iMovie. Haven't tried Premiere Pro yet, but my guess it will also work. Sorry to hear this model is worse than the older ones. Thought I was buying something useful to help with my conversions for my new business. Thanks for the infos.

-- merged --

What would you recommend for under $1k? Anything out there now that would be better than this ADVC-300? I still may be able to return it to ebay seller.

Try return it if you are not satisfied with the results. Not sure what their policy is for returns because "It works but I changed my mind". Reselling it is another option.

Recommendations may depend on which specific MAC you have - both model and OS version.

Are you starting a business doing VHS conversion (as opposed to a hobby effort)?
If so do you have a business plan that addresses your:
- investment target ($1000 mentioned above)?
- planned gear and software suite?
- specific services such as restoration, editing, delivery format options?
- time allocations for the capture/conversions?
- price points for the services you offer?
- estimated start date?

I believe a number of people here have experience in that field and may be able to share their experience.

Don't return it yet, It can be used in passthrough mode which bypasses DV encoding and it should give you a stable image for a generic capture device that you will have to purchase, at least according to DB83 a senior member over at videohelp. You have it already so may as well give it a try.

What would be the point of that? :question:

The "passthrough" has no TBC to speak of, the known-flawed Panasonic chip inside does nearly nothing. So that's out. Therefore the ADVC is merely a useless extra item in the workflow.

I would still try it, I've seen samples of it in passthrough mode and it's quite pretty good.

Any ideas on good free capture software on mac os x for dv (DV boxes, cameras, etc)?

So far, what I found is :
- Most legacy software won't work due 32 bits support being dropped.
- Imovie/FCP imports the capture within the project but you cannot export the untouched DV, you will have to encode it by exporting the project. Also, many people I know complained that it splits the video randomly, it does not capture the entire video as 1 whole chunk. (my guess is, if the signal is lost even for a split second, imovie considers it as if we are passing from one video to another so it splits it - it is a feature, slightly useful for camcorders, but it is not for unstable vhs)
A workaround in movie: save the project, then go to imovie library, <your project name>, original files, you will find the temp captures there in .mov, just the container is .mov, but the codec of the video will be DV. you can "steal" the files from there. Definitely not a user-friendly approach

- Quicktime: same problem, it does not export the untouched dv capture... but at least you get it in 1 chunk and minimal loss if you go with "maximum" prores
- VLC seems to be okayish, like quicktime, but for god's sake, it is VLC... It is not even a proper capture software.

Installing Linux on your apple device and using DV grab is a possible solution that has a setup cost, but makes your life much easier afterwards.

:depressed:
Willing to listen to other DV capture suggestions on os x.

@swolak, you can't (or more precisely, you can, but ethically shouldn't) start a business for video conversion with a 1k investment, an ADVC box, and a mac, not in an NTSC country. If you really insist on doing it, at least let people know you're the cheap service for small pockets, not a quality service, at least people know what they are buying. I know a lot of people who would be happy with medium/passable quality for VHS conversations as long as it does not break the bank (like 7€/tape), just be upfront, do not advertise yourself as a quality service expert with "pro" gear, because you can't be a quality service with what you have, not mac, not advc, and not with 1k budget in NTSC world (you can barely fit a good vcr and a quality card no much room left any tbc-ish alternative, not even a tbc, nor a capture PC).

bear in mind : Some sort of tbc-ish correction may become necessary when dealing with people's sources, things can vary a lot, even if you can get away without it because some gear worked fine for your own 20-40 tapes, it doesn't mean this exact perfect gear will work fine with all random tapes.

Good luck!

I don't understand why someone would chose MAC if the intension is running a business, It's like saying I'm gonna go drive Ubber with my $90k Mercedes Benz, The point here is not the price but the Mercedes Benz is a luxuray car used for occasioanl travel not for that kind of driving.

Even for personal use, for DV, an old Dell laptop with an original firewire and Win 7 can be had for as low as $50 at most recycling facilities, flea markets, local online ads, and then just instal SClive and you're good to go.