Am looking to transfer VHS Tape to DVD and am considering purchasing the Canopus ADVC 110 which is at the upper end of my £200 budget. Unfortunately I can't try the hardware before I buy so this will be a leap of faith. Has anyone used the 110 and if so can they pass an opinion on the quality of conversion bearing in mind;
1) The quality of the sound and picture has to be as close to the original as possible and playable on a 30 inch TV without looking pixellated or jerky
2) As the tapes will be a straight transfer I could opt to buy a £200 DVD recorder and go down that route so I would expect the Canopus to at least match an average priced DVD recorder

Any ideas or is there a better alternative

Thx- Rich

I've been chuffed to bits with mine (ADVC 100). I use it alot for converting this and that. One of the most useful bits of kit I have. Paid about a hundred quid for it. Look on ebay for a used one, you'll save loads.

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I messed about with a couple of cheap options without much success until I finally took the plunge and bought an ADVC 110. I have never looked back since... great bit of kit and perfect quality. I capture in AVI format and then compress to Mpeg for DVD burning. I am not sure if you can capture AVI format via a Digital Camcorder? I think it is compressed to Mpeg as it passes through?

Personally I prefer to edit in AVI to keep the quality at it's best.

I use the advc300 and other canopus gear and it is all excellent stuff.

If you only want to do A to D and not D to A, consider the ADVC-55. It's cheaper - new is about £130 - and I've been delighted with mine. Stable, and good quality conversion.

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The biggest fool can ask questions that the wisest man cannot answer...

Thanks for the advice guys- it seems from what ive read that the canopus 55 and 110 transfer pretty accurately and on reflection I can't see why I would want to transfer from Digital to Analouge which means that provided that's the only difference between the two models, I may as well buy the ADVC 55

I think it's the only difference - but double check before you part with your cash...

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Premiere Pro, Encore, Photoshop, Ulead VS6, WXP Pro, Core 2 Duo, 2GB, 2 x 250GB SATA3 drives, 2 x 250GB USB 2 external drive, DVD writer, GeForce 7300 GS 256MB

The biggest fool can ask questions that the wisest man cannot answer...

The 110 is 'two way' so you can view your video directly to a TV monitor in real time. This is handy for adjusting brightness/contrast/hue etc which comes accross very much different on a PC monitor. That is the only reason I bought the 110 rather than the 55. It is a great way to see EXACTLY what you video will actually look like in the real world.

Can someone help me? I've recently purchased a Canopus 110 (off Ebay, which was a great deal), and it seems to be working well (syncing fine, and picture looks great) but I can't seem to get the audio level up. It comes in very low. I am using composite audio cables from an analog VCR into the box and then the firewire out of the box and into my computer, capturing it with Pinnacle Studio software.

Any tips/help?

This is from memory - but on the back of my ADVC-55 there's a row of dip switches, and I'm sure one of them relates to volume. Obviously, it's either 'high' or 'low', but perhaps if the unit is secondhand, the guy has had it set to low. Sorry, that's the best I can do.

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Premiere Pro, Encore, Photoshop, Ulead VS6, WXP Pro, Core 2 Duo, 2GB, 2 x 250GB SATA3 drives, 2 x 250GB USB 2 external drive, DVD writer, GeForce 7300 GS 256MB

The biggest fool can ask questions that the wisest man cannot answer...