Canopus ADVC300 review

Canopus' ADVC300 is a bi-directional analogue-to-digital video converter which does significantly more than its competitors in the increasingly crowded market for theses devices.

In addition to providing you with a method of importing analogue video to iMovie, Final Cut Pro, and Final Cut Express, the ADVC300 can be used as a standalone converter. The ADVC300 also cleans and stabilises analogue video before conversion so the digital video you end up with is of a higher quality than the original analogue signal. It separates the Y (brightness) and C (chrominance) signals on composite analogue video which improves picture quality. You can also make manual adjustments to video and audio signals using controls on the box or via the bundled software application. and there's a locking option to make sure audio never drifts out of sync with the picture, which can be a problem with other devices. The included Picture Controller software allows you to change image and audio settings and apply the available filters to the converted video.

These features also mean that the ADVC300 can be used to clean up analogue video and output it back to analogue tape or directly to MiniDV tape using a digital camcorder. However, for most Mac users, the ADVC300 will chiefly be used to clean up analogue video and to convert it to digital for use in iMovie or Final Cut projects.

If the ADVC300's list of features is impressive, its appearance and design is less so. It looks more like a modem from the mid-1990s than a digital video accessory and for a product which costs £349, it feels less robust than we'd like. It's plastic case feels as though it would break or crack easily and its buttons, the power button in particular, are too flimsy and unresponsive. However, the unit has a full range of connectors. On the front are composite video-in and left and right audio-in ports, together with an S-video socket and a four-pin FireWire connector. On the rear are composite audio and video out, six-pin FireWire and S-video out sockets as well as a DC power connector and a component output interface which allows you to monitor video on a broadcast monitor. The component output feature needs a special cable (not included) to connect to BNC input, but is another feature that sets the ADVC300 apart from the field.

Setting up the ADVC300 is daunting, thanks to the sheer number of features available. In addition to connecting source, destination and power, you need to set the dip switches on the bottom of the case to the correct position for the features you want to use. The settings are well explained in the manual, but you'll need to read it carefully before you get started.

In our tests, the ADVC300 worked perfectly with iMovie and Final Cut Express and the results were excellent. Footage from old VHS tapes that was dull and washed out improved significantly.

The ADVC300 is undoubtedly the best analogue-to-digital converter we've tested. It's expensive, and we have reservations about the build quality, but if restoring old analogue footage to its former glory is important to you then it's well worth the investment.