A friend has recently bought a top of the range Sony Vaio laptop with firewire, Premiere 6.5, Win XP, 120GB Firewire HD etc.

He has asked for my advise about capturing Analogue signals (and exporting). I'm only used to desktop PC's where I would have advised and analogue capture card.

Do they make an analogue PCMCIA capture card?

At the moment the only way I can see how he can get an analogue source into his laptop, let alone export, is via a USB device like Pinnacles LINX studio - but this will only capture in MPEG and not full quality AVI. Would this work with Premiere?

Any help and advice would be appreciated.

All the best,

Ed Smith

What about a transcoder like the Canopus ADVC100?

Also, Canopus makes a firewire/analog card called the ADVC1394...but I think it's for desktops only.... I 'could be wrong though.

The advc100 or the dac2 should do what you want. And they are not very big either, in keeping with the portability of the laptop.

Cheers guys for the input.

I'll pass the info onto my friend and let him decide. I was looking at the dazzle (www.dazzle.co.uk) range or converters as well.

Which one would be better, Dazzle or Canopus? both I believe are about the same price.

Thanks again,

Ed Smith

Does he have a DV camera with AV/DV pass through? Many of the newer cameras have the feature. Can be really handy.

Rick

I forgot about Analogue in/out maybe he won't need to buy an analogue - DV converter.

Thanks again, (that might save him a few bob)

But if he has not got analogue in/out which one would you go for?

All the best,

Ed Smith

Haven't used the Dazzle, but I haven't heard good things.

The Canopus box is pretty good at what it does.

Using the camera for a pass-through is a good idea, if he has it.

I would stay away from the dazzle. Buzz on the boards is that it's not very reliable. Dropped frames, and drifting synch. I use the canopus advc100 and it's rock steady

Second to Bill's observations. The Canopus is more or less bulletproof, while the Dazzle is like a big yellow Fisher-Price "my first DV converter"

Thanks for the comments.

I have passed them on and I feel that they might go for the canopus ADVC100.

All the best,

Ed smith