Hi all,
I have a digital camcorder, loads of old VHS tape, an iMac and a PC. I use the iMac for editing my digital tape using iMovie, it's very simple and totally great.
HOWEVER
I want to edit my old VHS tapes, iMac's don't have a composite input and the only reasonably priced product available in the UK is the new Dazzle hollywood bridge, and it DOESN'T WORK!
So my question is, is there a decent video capture card/software on a PC that will take old VHS tapes in at full quality and allow me to carry out simple editing on a PC?
If I could then connect to my digital camcorder using Firewire and save the edited tapes that would be even better.
The only VHS capture devices I could find on a Mac were USB, that don't appear to allow for full size, full quality editing. Please remember my requirement is for an editing set up that leaves the resultant quality basically the same as the original.
Thanks
Andy Watkins
Is there no way you can dub the VHS onto miniDV and then capture? The quality is very good if sone this way, and can sometimes improve the picture over the original VHS. And the Sony DV decks are soooooo nice!
Graeme
Hi
You could try a media converter. These take an anolog signal and convert it to a digital one and vice versa. Sony make one and so do FORMAC. look at there websites.
other wise copying to dv is as nattt says very good. i suspect even copying to Digital 8 is good.
cj
My digital 8 camcorder takes analogue in via the composite output, so I can copy VHS tapes to digital 8 format, and then on into the Mac via firewire in the usual way. According to Datavision's web site, analogue in only works with Digi-8, not standard DV.
quote:Originally posted by AndyWatkins:
...the only reasonably priced product available in the UK is the new Dazzle hollywood bridge, and it DOESN'T WORK!
Hi Andy,
That's certainly not been our experience.
What was your problem?
Cheers,
Pete
Pete,
I plugged the hollywood straight into the iMac, fired it up with a video recorder on play at the other end and it worked straight away
BUT
The pictures were heavily pixallated. wherever there was a strong contrast between colours or wherever anything moved, you know those funny little distortion pixels that crop up now and again, but the screen was full of loads of them, totally useless, I tried different video recorders, cables etc.
Either the hollywood was rubbish, or broken, or you need something better than an ordinary video recorder to feed the signal in.
I solved the problem anyway, I sent it back, got my money back and paid a gentleman called Charles less than 1/2 the price of the hollywood and he transferred all my tapes to DV for me, no pixellation whatsoever, now I can feed them into the iMac, edit and re output.
Thanks
Andy
Hi Andy,
That's certainly not been our experience.
What was your problem?
Cheers,
Pete
John,
My Panasonic DV camera is very cheap, so doesn't have any form of analogue input, if it did I would have been alright.
I presume I can't record ONTO DV from the Analogue out?? I haven't tried this, I have had the camera DV in enabled, but I don't think it has any ability to input analogue signals??
Andy
quote:Originally posted by JohnF:
My digital 8 camcorder takes analogue in via the composite output, so I can copy VHS tapes to digital 8 format, and then on into the Mac via firewire in the usual way. According to Datavision's web site, analogue in only works with Digi-8, not standard DV.
Andy,
I think you must have been unlucky and got a duff one - the tests we did, on Mac and PC, were very positive, even though the review, in the just-published April issue, does highlight some issues we think need to be addressed.
Bob C
Bob,
You may well be right though I checked on www.bcastvideo.com, they have a link to a Dazzle support forum, where there seem to be very bad things to say about Dazzle and the Hollywood. Tricky, I guess you can't please all the people all the time.
But Charles has converted my tapes now and I have the DV link to the iMac for my new tapes, so not really a problem for me anymore.
Thanks
Andy
Andy,
I think you must have been unlucky and got a duff one - the tests we did, on Mac and PC, were very positive, even though the review, in the just-published April issue, does highlight some issues we think need to be addressed.
Bob C
quote:Originally posted by AndyWatkins:
John,My Panasonic DV camera is very cheap, so doesn't have any form of analogue input, if it did I would have been alright.
I presume I can't record ONTO DV from the Analogue out?? I haven't tried this, I have had the camera DV in enabled, but I don't think it has any ability to input analogue signals??
Andy
I'm no expert, but my understanding is that its only the Sony Digital 8 cameras that can have analogue in enabled as well as Dv in.
John,
I think someone else told me something simillar. I am very happy with my Panasonic but the Sony customers seem to have had better service when it comes to compatability.
I believe digital 8 sony camcorders can play Hi8 sony tapes, so in my case I would have just put my old tapes in my new digital camera and fed them out to the iMac. VHS-C to Mini DV has unfortunately got no upgrade path though, or any backwards compatability.
Oh well I guess I should have bought a Sony years ago, seem to remember they were more expensive than my old JVC analogue and my Panasonic Digital camcorder.
Analogue cost me £650 some years ago and my new digital cost just over £400 (Excellent price for a digital camcorder)
Andy
I'm no expert, but my understanding is that its only the Sony Digital 8 cameras that can have analogue in enabled as well as Dv in.
Got my Dazzle box a couple of weeks back... ouch! Why does the audio always break up? I've been reading other message boards and it looks like others are having something like that too. Shame really, the video is looking good. I'll try a new install of my system, but from what I am reading this hasn't helped some people with this.
Anyone had these funny audio problems and solved them?