I use a Sony 8mm tape deck into my Sony VX2000 to digitize it, then into Vegas to capture it.

Yep, if you have a digital camcorder that allows pass through this is obviously the cheapest solution since it’s free.

If not, this one is truly a case of “you get what you pay for”. All of the “cheap” (i.e., sub-$100) solutions have problems ranging from poor video quality to audio being out of sync. Once you get into the $200 range there are several products from Canopus: ADVC-50 ($199), ADVC-1394 ($249), ADVC-100 ($299), which do a great job. I have an ADS A/V Link ($199) but it drops frames a lot. ADS Tech is working with me to try and fix it but I could not recommend this product at this time. All the products I mentioned have no tie to any particular software. I would stay away from proprietary hardware that requires its own software to work. It just limits your options when the software doesn’t work!

[Edit: Aug 1, 2004] ADS Tech has a fix for this problem and my ADS A/V Link is now working perfectly

~jr

I have a dv

so how is the quality of the dv connected to vcr to pc using firewire? thanks in advance. I almost bought ads.

LeadTek WinTV2000XP is the hardware, the provided software is OK for MPEG-2 captures.
If you want a more editable format, add the purchased showshifter.com which allows Mjpeg.avi files with locked audio (unless you have a very very bad sound interface already on your PC).

US$60 for the card, US$60 for the TiVO like software.
Sure, a DV solution isn't much more than this, but you did ask cheapest.
I also assume that the VHS deck you have only has composite video out, but even then you'll already have the quality cable to keep the PC noise away from the capture input. (another advantage of outboard DV capture units like ADS and my preference, the Canopus units).

The quality of capturing your VHS through your DV camera is as good as the VHS tape is which is just as good as the Canopus or ADS Tech boxes. There are more expensive boxes ($500+) that will pre-process your VHS video to clean it up and enhance it before capture but you could always clean up the video after you capture it.

I bought the ADS A/V Link for convenience so I don’t have to break out the camcorder and hook it up every time I want to capture a VHS tape. If you don’t mind the hassle, save your money and use your DV camcorder. The quality is the same.

~jr

I have an ATI Radeon 8500DV capture card. You can capture composite (RCA connector) or S-Video. It also has Firewire inputs to capture video from your camcorder.

I've tried lots of combinations (different codecs, etc.) going from the analog source (the video output from your VHS tape deck in your case) into the ATI card. So far, I've never gotten results that I thought were any better than what I get by plugging the VHS deck into my camcorder, and then using the camcorder pass-through feature to convert to DV video and pass this into the computer via the Firewire connection. I then edit the DV video in Vegas, convert to MPEG2 in Vegas, and burn the DVD in DVDA.

Bottom line: use the DV pass through on your camcorder.

>>I've tried lots of combinations (different codecs, etc.) going from the analog source (the video output from your VHS tape deck in your case) into the ATI card. So far, I've never gotten results that I thought were any better than what I get by plugging the VHS deck into my camcorder, and then using the camcorder pass-through feature to convert to DV video and pass this into the computer via the Firewire connection. I then edit the DV video in Vegas, convert to MPEG2 in Vegas, and burn the DVD in DVDA.

Here here! DV-CAM passthrough is by far the easiest and most simple way I also have found to to capture analog source. Can't tell you the headaches I had before a simple purchase of an inexpensive TVR-33!!!

"but you could always clean up the video after you capture it. "

Can you clarify this? How do you clean up the video after capture ?

Thanks for your help.