Stupid Question?

[Gordon B. Alley]

On Sun, 23 Mar 2003 08:42:53 -0500, "Mark O'Brien" <rmobrien at mac.com> wrote:
>
>On Sunday, March 23, 2003, at 07:44  AM, Steve Robertson wrote:
>
>>  Even if your camcorder doesn't have the "pass thru" function, you can
>>  still use it as an analog to digital converter. Just insert a blank
>>  tape in your digital camcorder and make a digital copy of your analog
>>  VHS original. Since the video is converted to digital before it goes
>>  onto the camcorder's tape, the camcorder's tape should not contribute
>>  to any loss of quality. The only drawback is that this method takes
>>  twice as much time as a "pass thru."
>>
>
>I'm not sure what constitutes "pass thru". I always thought that meant
>you didn't need to have a tape in the camcorder to digitize video
>through the firewire port to the computer. My Sony DCR-TRV110 (Digital
>8) doesn't do this - I have to have a tape in the camcorder, but I can
>capture the digital signal *simultaneous* to recording it on the D8
>tape. If I want to keep an archive copy, I keep the D8 tape. If I just
>wanted to get the digital signal to the computer, I can reuse the D8
>tape.

Your idea of pass-through is the same as mine. I can connect my VHS 
deck output to my ZR-40 camcorder's A/V input (no tape in the 
camcorder), and capture it in iMovie via the FireWire connection. I 
can also capture live video from the camera into iMovie (I've used 
that to generate some brief talking head clips).

I haven't actually tried recording on a miniDV tape and capturing to 
the Mac at the same time.

I have gone the other direction, though. When I export from iMovie 
back to my ZR-40 onto a fresh miniDV tape, I can daisy-chain the 
analog A/V outputs of the ZR-40 to one or more VHS decks to make 
simultaneous VHS copies.

-- 
Gordon Alley  <*>
<mailto:galley at texas.net>
<http://galley.home.texas.net>