Dear friends at afterdawn.com, Very warm greetings and appreciation for all your help to novices like me. My problem is the same as some of the threads I already searched, but could not find appropriate and latest solution to. I have an old Sony Hi-8 Analog Handycam CCD-TRV46E, which has only A-V output, no s-video or no firewire. I would like to convert all my Hi-8 tapes to digital media (like DVD). I have read your suggested link on this subject.. ( http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/80325 ) But I notice that most of the discussion in that thread is more than an year old. With the more advances in technology in last one year, do you gentlemen think there are any better ways to do my job? Pardon me if I am asking too much, but would you please also suggest me some Mini-DV camcorder models or DVD Camcorder models that will help me best in converting my Hi-8 tapes into my laptop or DVDs (pass through function). (I have a notebook PC HP Pavillion dv4000, Centrino 745 1.8 GHz, 1GB Ram, 100GB HD, 128MB Shared video memory, Firewire and S Video ports, DVD Dble layer writer etc.). Your kind help is really appreciated. I again ask for your forgiveness if I am asking the same old question, but I have been searching for past two hours on this forum but could not find any latest answer to my problem. (The problem is not with the forum, perhaps I don't know well how to search... ) Sorry, forgot to add one thing. Actually I was just about to purchase the Pinnacle or Cyenergy devices to capture analog and transfer to PCs, but after reading your threads I think I don't need those devices as I have to buy a new mini-dv or a dvd camcorder anyway, and that would do my job of converting old tapes as well. Let me also add that the Mini DV Camcorders that have A-V Inputs are very expensive and beyond my budget. So I can't use those as my 'PASS THROUGH' device to capture movies from my analoge camcorder. There are several Mini DV camcorders that have DV Inputs though, and are in my budget. Could those be used for my job as well? But how, because my output from analogue camcorder is A-V cables and not DV output. Please guide. THANKS MILLIONS. Regards.
Hi I had a similar problem, Many HI8 analog tapes which I wanted to convert to digital. The cheapest way for me was to buy an osprey video card model No210 from ebay this cost me £50.00 once I put this in my computer and downloaded the latest software from viewcast (manufacturer) it did the job very well. As for software windows moviemaker works very well. The only problem you may have is you need a spare Pci slot., if as I suspect you do not have one then you can buy capture devices that run with a usb cable but you will loose quality as far as I’m aware no external analog converter runs through a wirefire port which would maintain quality Not all camcorders have the ability to “pass through” and the ones that do can be more expensive and as you say outside your budget. One other option would be to buy a HI8 digital camcorder then you can load your Hi8 analog tapes many Sony machines will do this. Best place again is ebay they go for around £100
