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  1. This is my first post. If this is in the absolutely wrong spot, please, moderators, move it to the appropriate spot.

    I have a Sony Digital HD video camera recorder HDR-HC1. We bought this when general consumer small HD video cameras were just coming out and quite expensive - back in 2005. We bought it because our first child was about to come into this world. Anyway, last year (2013) it started to give us problems. It would say to reinsert cassette and then when we did that, it would keep saying it. It also would say things like 'condensation in camera'. There were also times we would be recording and then it would stop and say reinsert cassette. Needless to say, we did go out and buy another HD camcorder so we wouldn't end up missing some critical time we wanted to record something. My problem now is that I want to transfer all our Mini DV tapes onto blu-ray. The camcorder is basically not cooperating EVER, so I can't even pull off things onto my computer media server so I can edit it and transfer to a blu-ray. It used to be just sporadic problems, but not anymore.

    SOOOO, I need to know what piece of equipment is available for me to merely take my Mini DV tapes, pull off the video onto my computer, edit it (read as move around some clips that are in the wrong order), and then copy off onto Blu-rays for keeping. Being quite a novice at camcorders, etc., I have no idea what to even search on to find the proper piece of equipment. Or, I would be willing to pay someone to pull the info off, but would love to have the ability to move clips around so I can put them in date order (there are 3 tapes in which we inadvertently filmed items and then pulled the tape out and put in a different one on accident, etc. ... after those first 3 tapes, all the others are easy and in order with no mixups).

    Help/info/suggestions are appreciated since I don't even know where to begin my search.

    Jody
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  2. It's pretty simple, you need a working HDV camcorder or deck, and a firewire connection on your computer. Although the tapes are the same form factor as mini DV, the electronic signal is completely different.

    A decent low-priced NLE for ingesting your material and rearranging your files is Sony Vegas Movie Studio. You can often find it at a good discount for about $40.

    One advantage of HDV is that it can be smart-rendered, meaning it's only re-encoded within a half second of the edit point if necessary -- mostly lossless. Vegas Movie Studio Platinum comes with a decent Blu Ray authoring program as well.
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  3. Originally Posted by smrpix View Post
    It's pretty simple, you need a working HDV camcorder or deck, and a firewire connection on your computer. Although the tapes are the same form factor as mini DV, the electronic signal is completely different.

    A decent low-priced NLE for ingesting your material and rearranging your files is Sony Vegas Movie Studio. You can often find it at a good discount for about $40.

    One advantage of HDV is that it can be smart-rendered, meaning it's only re-encoded within a half second of the edit point if necessary -- mostly lossless. Vegas Movie Studio Platinum comes with a decent Blu Ray authoring program as well.
    Thank you!
    Looking at possible equipment besides another camera, could I use the Sony DSR-11 DVCAM/MiniDV PRO Digital VCR Player Recorder Deck to port them over to my computer? Of course I would try to find a used one, but was wondering if that would work also.
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  4. Originally Posted by buyitjody View Post
    Looking at possible equipment besides another camera, could I use the Sony DSR-11 DVCAM/MiniDV PRO Digital VCR Player Recorder Deck to port them over to my computer? Of course I would try to find a used one, but was wondering if that would work also.
    That's a great deck, but it won't play HDV. Again, the casettes are identical, but the recorded signal is very different.
    (Technically, it will work if you used your HDR-HC1 in DV mode only -- which for the sake of your memories I hope you didn't do.)
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  5. Originally Posted by smrpix View Post
    Originally Posted by buyitjody View Post
    Looking at possible equipment besides another camera, could I use the Sony DSR-11 DVCAM/MiniDV PRO Digital VCR Player Recorder Deck to port them over to my computer? Of course I would try to find a used one, but was wondering if that would work also.
    That's a great deck, but it won't play HDV. Again, the casettes are identical, but the recorded signal is very different.
    (Technically, it will work if you used your HDR-HC1 in DV mode only -- which for the sake of your memories I hope you didn't do.)
    Ack! Thanks (again)! I think this one will work: Sony HVR-M15U HDV Deck Firewire iLink Mini DV Tapes DVCAM Tape Deck
    Am I correct? And YES, I used my video camera in HDV mode...I bought it for the high def ability after all! HA!
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  6. Never actually had my hands on one of those, but according to the specs it should do the trick.
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