[MacDV] Re: Analog Video to Digital

[Richard Brown]

The quality of video on a computer monitor should not be used to gage 
the quality of a DV stream. Only a monitor or TV can show you the 
reality of the digitized video. However, you must be able to put the DV 
stream up on such a monitor or TV. ("Monitor" refers to a professional 
monitor, like the Sony PVM-14M4U, and "TV" refers to a standard 
television.) Sony 8mm and Hi 8mm video can be encoded perfectly to DV 
using the Sony Video Walkman GV-D800, which has the benefit of a Time 
Base Corrector, or "TBS" (in short, both Hi 8 and Regular 8 video are 
tremendously improved through a time base corrector, which corrects for 
many of the common analog problems, turning what may appear as 
unacceptable video when played back through other means to acceptable 
video for editing.)

The Sony GV-D800 plays back (with TBC) Regular 8mm and Hi 8mm video, as 
well as Digital 8, records as well, and provides a DV stream I/O 
through 1394 Firewire to and from your firewire Mac, plus provides 
throughput to a monitor or TV. Of interest, the GV-D800 is a video 
walkman, meaning it does have an LCD monitor built in, which can be 
handy for a rough cut in the field with a PowerBook. We have this unit 
for the oddball 8mm tape which do show up from time to time, and have 
brought it to distant field edits, as described, and regarding the 8mm 
performance, it is very acceptable to excellent, and replaces the need 
to suffer the pragmatic cost of a higher end 8mm deck. It is in the 
$800 range.

Richard Brown