Printing to VHS tape through Firewire

Sam the PI wrote on 4/26/2005, 3:06 PM
If I want to print-to-tape, I have no problems when printing the file through Firewire to my Digital8 deck. I prefer using the DV Device Control features, so I don't have to press any buttons on my deck.

Unfortunately, my clients prefer VHS over anything else. Why? I have no idea. Currently, I burn my rendered video to DVD and then transfer the DVD to a VHS tape using my DVD/VCR combo deck. It works fine, but I would rather just eliminate the step of burning a DVD.

Instead of my Digital8 deck, can a VHS deck be used instead to print videos through Firewire? I understand that it would be eventually converted to analog, but I want the ability to control the VHS deck functions using DV Device Control.

I already know that I can just hook up my Digital8 deck to a VCR with an S-Video cable, but then I wouldn't be able to control the VCR with the software.

Are there any VHS decks out there that have a Firewire input and could be controlled with the Sony software?

Thanks!

Comments

MAMF wrote on 4/29/2005, 10:03 AM
If your video card has an S-Video out, hook it up to your VCR and connect the line out of your soundcard to the audio inputs. Play the rendered AVI file and record on the deck.

Never tried this myself, so I'm just making an educated guess.

Why the heck would anyone want VHS over DVD!?!?!? Oh well....
IanG wrote on 4/29/2005, 10:21 AM
Unfortunately, my clients prefer VHS over anything else. Why? I have no idea.

Have you asked them? I can understand a few people prefering VHS, but not the majority.

Ian G.
Chienworks wrote on 4/29/2005, 11:17 AM
Let's see ... i've got an old SONY DVMC-DA2 that converts DV from firewire to analog audio/video. It supposedly also has the ability to convert DV device control to Lan-C/Control-L (i think, if i recall correctly). If you had a VHS deck that accepted Lan-C signals you could use the DVMC-DA2 to control it, supposedly. My SONY SLV-960 VHS deck supposedly has this ability. I've never tried it, so i can't report on how well it works.

For me, it's always been easy enough to press the Rec button after starting the PTT function.