So i read in this forum somewhere a discussion about using another digital camera to route 8mm and VHS tapes directly to your computer but i forgot to save the thread. Can anyone give me a link to a guide or how-to? Also quick question, once i plug my 8mm camera into a digital and into the computer... do I hit play on both cameras or record or what? Thanks... i tried searching but couldnt find a step by step or anything. -Aure
So I found the link: http://www.digitalvideoclub.com/basics/transfer.php But have 1 question: What delivers bettwe quality, a capture card or a "pass-through." I was going to buy a capture card but I can always just borrow a digital camera, so i was just wondering which method was better if money is not an issue? thanks
Pass through, because it captures as DV-AVI in most cases. If you don't have a digital video camera, then a capture card, and software that is capable of capturing analog as digital, is a far cheaper way of going. BTW, if you are going to borrow a digital camcorder, capable of pass through, then you better borrow the firewire cable to go with it, and you computer has to have a firewire input to connect the digital camcorder to.
I am having the same problem. I have a Sony Handcam - video Hi8. I have no special hardware on my computer to record to my hard drive or to DVD. My husband purchased a Software called DVD Express DX2. Well it cost $125 and you plug in your white and yellow wire in the little box and then your USB in the computer and it comes with a program called Capture Wizard and I think it sucks. Why can't they have a software that record to your hard drive and then you can use it to edit later. I have to use 3 different softwares to burn to a DVD. I use CApture Wizard to record to my hard drive and then Video Studio 9 to edit it and if you don't do it just right. You don't get the stuff you don't want out. Then to burn to a DVD you can use the same software, but it doesn't play on some DVDs. So you can't win. I know I should just trade in for a new camcorder, but they are expensive.
Many of those USB analog to digital capturing devices capture directly in MPEG format which is quite unsuitable for editing (although there are some packages around that can do it). The resulting video quality is often also not very impressive. If you have a lot of Hi8 tapes lying around and you don't want to upgrade to a new digital camcorder you can also try to find a second hand Digital8 camcorder (you should be able to find one from ebay for $50 or so). Get a Firewire card plus cable (costs $15). Then you can transfer the video in DV-AVI using almost evry video editing progrma plus a number of freeware applications. This will give you maximum quality; material that you can easily edit (e.g. with Microsoft MovieMaker which is included free in Windows) an can be imported in any DVD authoring program. But nevertheless: the best option to convert analog source (either it be VHS, Hi8 or whatever) is to use the pass-through option of a digital camcorder. The digitizing hardware in camcorders has been designed specially for this task, so it will generate best quality.
