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| Review: Miglia Director's Cut SCART |
| Like Miglia's Director's Cut T2, will convert your analogue tapes to digital via FireWire, except that this one uses easier-to-connect SCART plugs. Here's what we think of the Director's Cut SCART. |
 With sales of DVD players and media now accounting for the lion's share of the home video market, it's not surprising to find users wishing to transfer their treasured VHS and 8mm family recordings to disk. Given the low cost of DVD re-writers, recorders and disks, the obvious choice is to get those old recordings off tape and into a Windows PC or Apple Mac. In the last couple of years Miglia, along with Fast, Canopus and Datavideo, has spear-headed the development of cost-effective technology designed to make this possible, and the Miglia Director's Cut SCART capitalises on the success of the excellent Director's Cut Take 2.
Design and Layout
The Director's Cut SCART shares many of the design features of the Director's Cut Take 2 A-D-A converter, of which we gave a favourable review. The casing is virtually identical with other Director's Cut products as well as the company's Media Bank storage systems, although it is slightly thinner. Functionality is almost identical in that it offers a user-selectable switch between Capture and Export functions in addition to NTSC and PAL/SECAM input signal processing. A 1/4 inch stereo headphone jack is provided on the front panel together with a headphone output level pot. Miglia has changed the lettering - from input and output symbols on the DC Take 2 - to the more logical words Capture and Export on the SCART version. The rear panel is much more simplified than is found on the DC Take 2; gone are the two sets of analogue composite video and audio connectors (yellow, red, white RCA phono sockets plus S-Video socket) and corresponding set of RCA Phono analogue output connectors. The SCART version - as you'd expect - replaces the input connectors with a single SCART (also known as EuroSCART) connection socket for two-way signal pass of all analogue video and audio connections. An additional S-Video and pair of RCA phono stereo audio connectors is provided which can be used for permanent connection to a TV monitor set during transfer and conversion in each direction. Finally, a 6-pin FireWire (IEEE1394, i.Link) socket is provided for connection to a suitably-equipped Windows PC or Apple Mac computer, as well as an optional 9-12v DC socket.
What's in the box
In addition to the unit, Miglia also includes a fully-wired two-way SCART cable for connection between the unit and the relevant analogue player, such as a VHS machine, satellite decoder box or TV set. Also included is a 1.8 metre 6-pin to 6-pin FireWire cable which connects to a computer's OHCI-compliant IEEE1394 FireWire socket. DC power connection is not provided as connection to a computer via FireWire will enable the unit to receive its DC via the FireWire bus, though in the instance where power is not available this way (such as if a 6-pin to 4-pin cable is used to connect to a 4-pin FireWire socket not having bus-powering) an optional DC power supply adaptor is available from Miglia via its website (see below).
Installation and operation
Although an installation and user guide is provided on an accompanying CD, the unit couldn't be easier to use for the first time. In Europe (the market at which this unit is targetted due to the near-universal use of the SCART single multipin plug), it's simply a case of connecting the source machine - in our case a Panasonic Nicam VHS recorder/player - and the FireWire cable to the computer to be used for capture and editing of the resulting analogue to digital video conversion. With the source tape playing, the Miglia Director's Cut SCART is switched on, "capture" is selected and (where appropriate) PAL or NTSC is also selected (depending upon the TV standard in use). We connected the unit in the first instrance to an Apple G4 Mac Desktop machine running Mac OS 10.2.8 and iMovie4. With iMovie launched after switching on the unit, iMovie's capture mode was selected and a preview image appeared immediately after the text "Camera Connected" momentarily appeared. The conversion to digital of our VHS stereo recording was now taking place, with capture being initiated by clicking iMovie's Import button. We captured approximately 20 minutes of converted VHS recording to digital via FireWire into iMovie4, and upon stopping the capture, iMovie4 automatically switched into Edit mode. The Director's Cut SCART then auto-sensed this change and returned an analogue output monitoring feed to the VHS recorder, to which a TV monitor was attached for full-screen viewing purposes. We didn't have to make any manual changes once we'd started - the unit did it automatically. We then attached the unit to the 6-pin FireWire connector of a Sony Viao PCV-RS224 desktop PC running Windows XP and Pinnacle Studio 9 capture and editing software, with similar results.
Performance
Over the period of capture, we were keen to check any possible loss of sync between picture and stereo sound; this has been a common problem where A-D converters have been used to convert relatively long durations of material. No such problems were encountered, either on the Apple Mac or the Sony Vaio Windows PC. The quality of conversion is very good indeed, with output every bit as good as that achieved by both the Director's Cut Take 2 and also the Canopus ADVC100. We evaluated this unit alongside the Canopus ADVC55 (also a portable, bus-powered, device), which we report separately. Naturally, the quality of the unit's digitally-converted ouput is limited to that of the source material, but in our case the VHS recordings were performed using high-grade tape stock and were very good. The conversion quality reflected this. The DC SCART lived up to its expectations.
Conclusion
The performance of this unit is almost identical to that of the Take 2 unit. It handles saturated chroma (reds, greens, blues) very well indeed, with very little of the visual noise normally associated with other units available. The substitution of a single multiway SCART socket in place of a collection of individual cables is an excellent idea, and makes connection to a wide range of AV devices very much easier. That the unit can be used in situations where connection to an AC supply is neither preferred or possible is a bonus, and the unit's bus-powering is ideal for those who wish to achieve A-D-A conversion in the field (eg: in presentations, conferences, field recording, etc., where a laptop computer is in use). The Director's Cut SCART is a worthy addition to Miglia's excellent product range, and we recommend it highly.
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| Points for: |
Attractive styling, ergonomic design, easy to set up, no-nonsense connectivity to SCART devices, excellent digital video and audio conversion quality, accessible switches and controls. |
| Points against: |
The enclosed CD manual isn't really necessary!
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| Conclusion: |
The Director's Cut SCART does the job it's designed to do with ease, and we can't fault it. Great value for money. |
| Rating 1-5: |
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| More Information: |
www.miglia.com
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