Digital8 to MiniDV conversion

[Mark O'Brien]

With 35-40 hours of Digital8 footage, my Sony DCR-TRV110 Digital8 camcorder has gone on the fritz. The repair shop is quoting me $330 for a new drum, due to some kind of contamination they can't clean off.

Recognizing MiniDV will be around and supported longer than Digital8, I had already upgraded to a newer Panasonic PVDV953 3CCD MiniDV camcorder. I had considered dubbing my Digital8 tapes to MiniDV for archival purposes, using a 4 pin-4 pin Firewire cable. Unfortunately, I hadn't gotten around to it before the Sony went bad. :-(

So my choices are to:

A) Spend the $330 to repair my 1999 model Sony ($50 diagnostic fee already paid would be applied to the repair)

B) Spend $380 for a new Sony DCR-TRV460 (Best Buy's online price)

C) Pay some third party to convert the 35-40 Digital8 cassettes for me and trash the old Sony.

I've seen a lot of traffic on this list referring to converting old movies (film) to MiniDV, but never Digital8 to MiniDV. Does anybody know of a service that does this?

Mark