[MacDV] Re: Which of these is the best source for DV ?

[Gregg Gorrie]

on 7/29/03 10:22 AM, Jeff Fay at jeff.fay at uaf.edu wrote:

> I'd suggest that #2 and #4 will acheive the same quality and also the
> highest quality. I think #2 is the best choice overall as it gives you
> the ability to have a second chance at capture - if for some reason the
> capture fails, you have the tape to try again. With #4 if you miss it,
> it's gone.
> 
> Sean wrote:
> 
>> Which of these sources is best for eventual use in iMovie?
>> 
>> 1)  analogue video on cable --> record to VHS tape (Hi-Fi, fast speed)
>> --> later, play through DV camcorder --> iMovie via FireWire
>> 
>> 2) analogue video on cable --> S-Video and stereo audio from cable
>> converter --> record to DV camcorder --> play DV to iMovie via FireWire
>> 
>> 3) analogue video on cable --> S-Video and stereo audio from cable
>> converter --> passthrough DV camcorder --> capture 'live' to iMovie
>> via FireWire
>> 
>> 4) makes no difference, we're only dealing with 300 lines of vertical
>> video resolution at best from an analogue video cable source.
>> 
>> Sean

I have two reasons for >NOT< using the #2 option:

1) Wear and tear on the camcorder heads. If you plan to do a lot of this,
keep in mind that the camcorder heads (and the moving mechanical parts) have
a limited life span. It does offer the "safety" backup feature, but you need
to balance this out against the "wear and tear" cost.

2) The second is a little more involved, so please bear with me. I
originally intended to back up all of my family's analog video tapes to
digital so someday I could go through and edit them, finally outputting them
to DVD. Started out buying a second hand Sony TRV-315 Digital 8 camcorder
because I didn't have a camcorder anyway, and figured I could use it to
transfer the old 8mm and VHS tapes. Much to my chagrin, this was an earlier
model that didn't have the pass-through function on it.  So, I proceeded to
simply record all the old tapes to my Digital 8 camcorder (as suggested
above) - about 20 hours worth.

Now the catch - when I attempted to capture these tapes to Final Cut Pro via
Firewire, the audio very quickly went out-of-sync with the video!! I tried
everything - preference settings, etc. etc. etc. I posted the problem to
this list, talked to the tech people at the college I teach at, and no one
could explain to me what the problem was.

Everything was fine on the tape. I tried capturing in Premier and got the
same result - audio very quickly becoming out-of-sync with the video. In
fact, the only way it worked properly was using iMovie. For some reason,
when capturing using iMovie, there was no sync problem.

Unfortunately, iMovie doesn't deal with timecode/EDLs, so figured if I was
going to all this trouble to get everything converted, I wanted to have the
long term capability of pulling up EDLs to enable me to batch capture and
re-edit things without having to start from scratch every time.

What does work (my current workflow) is to capture VHS tapes --->
Firewire/internal hard drive in FCP using one of those JVC Mini DV/VHS
decks, clean up the heads/tails, then export the timeline via Firewire to my
Digital 8 camcorder for archival purposes.

These tapes have >NO< sync problem when captured back into the computer!

-- 
Gregg