Copying Camcorder DV's to hard drive...

Gkc wrote on 1/8/2009, 1:50 PM
Hello,

I have Vegas Movie Studio 6.0 and DVD Architect Studio 3.0, on a WindowsXP PC. Would like to start using IEE1394 firewire to capture (copy) small DigitalHi8 tapes from a 5-year-old Sony camcorder to a hard drive (or to other media, just so I have an exact replica/copy/backup/whatever.

As an alternate way to capture...just got an inexpensive Toshiba D-R410 DVD recorder, which has a DV connector on front, to link to camcorder with firewire.

Wanted to ask for opinions on following, thanks...

1) If using PC to capture digital tapes to hard drive (separate "E:" internal drive), which Sony software should I use and what's best setting(s) to capture 100% of data (for max resolution, no compressing, downgrading, or anything). Or can/should I just use something simple like MS Movie Maker to do the capture? Do you just the camcorder and PC going for say 1-2 hours to capture the tape?

2) The Toshiba DVD recorder (altough inexpensive) has rave reviews about things like simpicity of capturing camcorder movies via firewire,direct to DVD-RW or -R. Why not do the capture using this Toshiba, seems way simpler (one of the reviewers mentioned he skipped the PC complexities and just used his Toshiba)? Any reasons this is "bad".

3) If I DID capture to the DVD-R or -R using the Toshiba, could I just "copy" the camcorder files to my hard drive (e: drive)... and have basically the same files and structure as if I had used the PC to capture the camcorder files?

4) One thing the Toshiba manual says is something like "does not copy camcorder date/time data..." This is a real problem...it's the only way I would know in future when (date/time) the video was filmed. It also means I "have" to keep the original Hi8 tapes for this. Does a camcorder-to-PC method get this date/time data?

5) Once I capture onto PC's hard drive (or Toshiba's DVD-RW or -R), can I go backwards and copy back to the camcorder to make an exact Hi8 tape of the movie (including time/date data)?


Greatly appreciate insights, I know there are many multi-page articles around, but they often seem overly detailed, so greatly appreciate the basics in layman's terms.

Thanks again,
George

Comments

Ivan Lietaert wrote on 1/8/2009, 2:05 PM
Capturing on a pc harddrive using Vegas or Movie Maker will give you the best quality (and time information). The toshiba will convert your video to mpeg2 instantly, which implies information loss and hence quality loss. Capturing on pc on the other hand requires about 13GB per hour, so you can do the math yourself to find out how much hard disk space will be required, depending on the number of tapes you have. Consider buying an external usb harddrive. They are cheap and do just fine.
If you plan on editing the movies on pc, forget about using the Toshiba because of two reasons: one, informationloss and two, editing mpeg2 files is bound to give problems (read my lips: don't even try it, it's a waste of time).
One more hint: keep your Hi8 tapes AND your camera, 'cause you never know you may need to recapture your tapes in the near or distant future.