Comments

SonyEPM wrote on 6/13/2001, 8:46 AM
DV Bridge supposedly works, but I haven't tested it. The Sony DVMC DA2 and powerr.com boxes also work as DV/analog converters. No need to install ANY of the 3rd party software that comes with these devices- just plug them into your 1394 card and let windows assign the drivers.
jboy wrote on 6/14/2001, 4:57 PM
For about $100 more than the stand alone device you can buy the low-end Sony digital 8 camcorder, with pass thru capabilites, and have an Analog/digital in and out machine, plus, a camcorder almost for free..
FadeToBlack wrote on 6/14/2001, 7:16 PM
Caruso wrote on 6/23/2001, 7:56 AM
I'd like to hear more about this "pass-thru" capability, myself. I have a Sony DV, Lord knows, it must be low-end (TRV103), but, as soon as I plug in the DV firewire cable, analog input is disabled . . . incoming signals will not reach the camera's viewfinder or its recording heads, let alone pass through to the firewire. Unplug the firewire, and she receives incoming signals normally.

I received for Father's Day a copy (store-bought legal copy, by the way) of Hoosiers (a beautifully done, if somewhat sentimental, film centered around Indiana basketball in the early 50's . . . off-topic, I know, but this is one of the few films out there that I can watch repeatedly, and, for some reason, I never tire of it). I know I'll watch this video many times, so, I decided to make a back-up copy of it, so as to preserve the original.

Normally, I would have hooked up two vcr's and copied the orignal video cassette onto a blank. But, for fun, I decided to copy via firewire to my computer, then back to the vcr. The only way to do this with my equipment was to copy onto DV first (in two segments since my DV camcorder is limited by currently available tape formats to a maximum of about one hour), then capture to the computer.

Would have loved to know how it's possible to simply pass the signal through my camcorder.

Thanks in advance for your replies.

Caruso
SonyEPM wrote on 6/23/2001, 9:00 AM
Very few DV cameras we've seen allow pass through of analog to DV. (Quite a few work the other way around, DV to analog). We gringos (and Canadians, y Norte Americanos) shouldn't bum out too much- most DV cameras sold in Europe don't even take DV in.

I know its not cheap (about $300), but I am once again going to promote the Sony DVMCDA2 Media converter. This box is a great little DV>analog/analog>DV converter and is one of our most frequently used hardware devices here at SF. If you frequently to DV-to-analog conversion, you should spring for one of these. Save wear and tear on your camera!
Caruso wrote on 6/24/2001, 5:34 AM
Question for Sonic . . . when I try to pass DV through my camcorder to my SVHS VCR, sfvidcap will pass the video, but not the audio. Well, actually, I cannot print to tape at all unless I put a cassette in the machine. This, of course, allows both audio and video to pass through, but, my print-to-tape session is limited by the length of my 8mm cassette (about an hour).

If I take out the 8mm cassette, I can preview via sfvidcap and pass through video limited only by the length of my SVHS cassette tape, but no sound. I know I could work around this by patching sound from my sound card, but, why does VV impose this limitation upon the firewire transfer?

For now, I get around this by opening my avi in Pinnacle's Studio DV, "rendering" to SDV Video(actually, if I've already rendered the avi in VV, there's nothing left to render in SDV, so, "rendering" takes a few seconds, even on a long production, then, outputing the "Studio Movie" to tape. Both sound and video are passed along the firewire.

I'd like to bypass the Pinnacle step eventually. Any suggestions?

Caruso
jboy wrote on 6/24/2001, 2:35 PM
Hi Caruso,Ive enabled pass-thru on my Sony 310 digital 8 camcorder, asnd believe you can do it on yours, by building a little gadget that costs less than $5.00 in parts and running a free program called ANIN, that enables pass-thru on my model camcorder. Go to the StudioDV forum at Pinnacle and do a search on this.AT seemed to know a lot about this, if he's still around.Also, all current Sony digital 8 camcorders, with the exception of the cheapest-(TRV 130) allow analog pass-thru. (The TRV-130's predecessor, the trv-120 did allow pass-thru, and they were cheap-as little as $435 on the web-but I guess Sony figured they were providing too much value for too little money so they withdrew the pass-thru AND the ability to play Hi-8 and reg. 8mm tapes thru the firewire, on this low end model) I just saw the TRV-720 dig8 in an ad from somebody a few days ago for $609, this model has a 4inch lcd, which is getting to be unusual, Sony seems to be reducing the lcd size in all it's camcorder models by 1/2 inch. These are a better deal than the Dazzle, which is basically a single purpose device. Look around for a new or used TRV-120, it wont cost much more than the Dazzle...
jboy wrote on 6/25/2001, 12:45 PM
Caruso, dont know where you live, but here in the San Francisco bay area the Goodguys chain store had an ad in today's paper offering the TRV-120 for $499, so these units are still available if you dig.
ruavdude wrote on 6/25/2001, 5:27 PM
Question: In trying to build a machine geared to VV, the staff hardware guru can't find any evidence that the Sony DCMA 200 (or whatever that analog-DV converter box is...my mind is about to shut down)works with Win2K. Based on a prior recommendation, I'm pretty sure it does, but could someone please verify it? thanks... steve
SonyEPM wrote on 6/26/2001, 10:29 AM
Sony Media Converter DVMCDA2 definitely works in Win2k. I use it every day.
jboy wrote on 6/26/2001, 1:39 PM
Ruavdude..the sony digital 8 camcorders will do this as well..