DV camcorder to camcorder copy possible?

[KillaByte]

Hi,

I would like to know if it's possible to copy a movie from one dv camcorder to another via firewire or if this is only possible the dv-pc-dv way.

I want to use a Digital8 camcorder to digitize old Hi8 tapes and archive them on MiniDV tape. If it would be possible to do this directly from cam to cam it would save the hassle involving a pc into the whole process.

[mustardman]

I have done it - easy process - no PC involved. But you need a camcorder that can record from the DV input. Cheap models are unlikely to work, as the duty/taxes on them is lower if recording is disabled (hence, they are cheaper to buy, and consumers like that!).

MM

[theReal]

Cheap models are unlikely to work, as the duty/taxes on them is lower if recording is disabled ...but they can be unlocked most of the time. All you have to do is get some software/hardware for a few bucks and unlock the IEEE1394 input.

[bongoman31]

Why not just use S-video to S-video, or RCA connections if that's all it has? Again, maybe cheaper camcorders don't have good output functions, but nice Sony's do.

[bb]

Originally posted by bongoman31
Why not just use S-video to S-video, or RCA connections if that's all it has?[...]
Because that's the analogue way and too lossy, if you ask me.

bb

[KillaByte]

It worked like a charm between a sony digital8 camcorder and a sony minidv camcorder. I didn't want to use s-vhs because it is too lossy (at least if you have the option to go the digital way).

[bongoman31]

Question to bb: Is there loss from Hi8, when using S Video? I understand digital to digital is best, but when source is Hi8.

[theReal]

When the source is Hi8 then the loss over S-Video would be minimal. One way the A/D converter is in the Hi8 camcorder directly, fed by an analogue component signal (in the best case...)
The other way there's a short path through an S-Video cable before the A/D conversion is done in the DV camcorder. I doubt anyone could see a difference here, but still technically there's more quality loss (component->S-Video->A/D compared to component->A/D)

[bb]

Originally posted by bongoman31
Question to bb: Is there loss from Hi8, when using S Video? I understand digital to digital is best, but when source is Hi8.
I agree with theReal's response. It's likely to get some additional loss when using the S-Video path - because of the cable, or the connectors, or both. Digital Video does not suffer from this kind of problems.

bb

[bongoman31]

Ok,
This enlightens me some; I've been outputting (Dvd's and VOB's) from laptop to Dig.8, using S-video, thinking that's about as good as it gets. It seems as hard if not harder to get laptop to output through dv firewire. It'll go the other way (camcorder to laptop) fine. In fact I had posted about this a month or two back, and one response was to use graph edit to manipulate things in the laptop; he said it would need to be a pretty stout laptop to handle it. Can anyone elaborate on this for me- I know nothing about graph edit! Or is there another or better way??
Thanks

[theReal]

DVDs and VOBs are MPEG2, but the firewire transfer to a DV cam needs DV video. Therefore the laptop must transcode from MPEG2 to DV on the fly - you can tell the laptop how to do this using graphedit (don't ask me how, I only know what graphedit could do theoretically). You could also convert the MPEG2 video to DV before you send it to the camcorder (i.e. with Adobe Premiere). In that case you don't need realtime performance, but you need a lot of space on the laptop's HDD (an additional 13GB for every hour of source video)

[guada 2]

In the same order of idea: DV to HDV
A video camera DV can it transport a flow DV towards a video camera HDV via the Firewire port?

I take the case of a video camera SONY DV and a SONY Hdr-fx1 compatible HDV/DV.


Your verdict.

[mustardman]

A program which you may want to check out : Video2DV

It will go MPEG (or anything that can play for that matter) to DV via 1394.

It needs a grunty PC though!

MM

[bongoman31]

This looks like what I've been looking for ! I'll try it over the weekend and report back how it works for me.