Thinking of moving to DV

[AndrewDV]

Hello,

I've been thinking of moving my equipment into the DV realm. The issue that has been holding me back is that I have a large library of Hi8 tapes. To me, there seems to be 2 ways to handle the situation.

The first would be to get a Digital8 camcorder. It is backward compatible with my library. However, I have read conflicting reviews of the quality.

The other option would be to get a DV camcorder along with a DAC for my Hi8 tapes. The Hollywood DV-Bridge has been staring at me for awhile. Some have had problems with it, but the hardware has been updated. The reviews are very good. Sony also has a solution, but that is a bit more pricey.

So, my questions are simple. Do you think DV is worth it? If so, which path would you recommend? Any info on why is greatly appreciated.

Thank you

[Fred H]

Here in Europe we have another problem making the choice more difficult.
The camcorders with Input are very expensive vs. camcorders without.
They are imposed with much higher duty on these camcorders.
There is, maybe a way to resolve the problem: to purchase a DV Widget, INput enablers.
I don’t know much about them, how to connect, how to use, issues etc. but this forum is the right place to discuss these aspects.

Fred H

[Dr Mordrid]

Andrew,

The upper-end of Sony's D8 line have much better optics and CCD's than the first generation did. I ran a friends TRV730 through the USAF optics battery recently and it did quite nicely.

Dr. Mordrid

[wkulecz]

Unless you willing to get well over $1000 for your DV cam there is no benefit over D8 except smaller size. D8 has no top of the line 3-CCD model which is a shame, but at the price points of D8 camcorders DV models have about the same performance and features (although most DV I looked at lack the A-in pass thru).

I have a DV (equiv price point as my D8) for its small size and D8, but once video is off the tape, its hard to tell which was taken where.

I'd get a D8 then you have a second camcorder and can still use your Hi8 on shoots as the analog tapes will be converted on the fly by playing them back in the D8 (except for the bottom of the line TRV-130).

--wally.

[Flying dutchman]

Another option might be to purchase the Mainconcept DV codec and use a Marvel + Huffyuv to convert the tapes to DV with minimal losses.

I personally am very satisfied with DV (canon elura) but I'm still using the Marvel for capturing.

[Dr Mordrid]

Very true. IF I'm shooting what will end up an effects sequence I'll either capture off the DV cam using S-Video or shoot it on the Hi-8. If its a studio setup I'll bypass taping and just capture a direct feed from the cam. All of these because of DV's limitations when adding overlaid animations or blue/greenscreen effects.


Dr. Mordrid

[Nick Piercey]

Hi Andrew,


Just though I’d add my 2p’s worth.

I’m currently running a Pyro/MSPro6VE combined with a Sony D8 (620).
I also use AVI_IO and Scenalyzer.

I too have quite a few Hi 8 tapes and didn’t want to make them redundant.

Everything works very well; I even use the pass through converter on the Sony to record TV from my satellite box using the timer facility on AVI_IO. Have to play back the files using Scenalyzer as MSPro won’t export the DV Type 2 files that AVI_IO creates.

Scenalyser also has a pretty good optical scene splitter for Hi8 tapes played back through the D8.

If you want more info, I suggest you have a word with Richard Jones, he’s the author of the MSPro6.5 tutorial at http://www.activeservice.co.uk/ and usually hovers around the Computer Video boards at http://www.dvdoctor.net/. He recommended the Sony D8 to me.


Regards,


Nick.