Analog Capture with MiniDV Cam

[Marlowe]

I seen suggestions before that a good way to capture old VHS home movies is to get a MiniDV with analog in, record to MiniDV, then capture the DV video through FireWire. Will this give me substantial improvement over analog capture with my AIW? Informed advice is welcome because the AIW analog capture results in lower quality than the original by far. Thanks.

[holistic]

Don't know about 'substantial' improvement but it will definitely be easier to capture your analog tapes to miniDv then use the miniDv camera to send them throug a firewire card.
The added benefit to all this is you can now 'store' your MiniDV tapes and the signal will not deteroiate (since it is digital) and then a year or so from now when DVD-RW is at a reasonable cost you can the transfer the tape to DVD

[ReneR]

If the camcorder model you got has a pass through feature you don't even have to record it to tape. Just connect the VCR to the camcorder's AV in and then the camcorder to your PC's firewire and then you can capture the video directly to your hard drive.

It may not make sense to leave the recording on DV tape because in reality the quality will never exceed that of the original. In practice you will find that converting the DV capture to either VCD or SVCD format will give you very good results.

[Tommy]

I have an ATI AIW 128 and have used it for a while. a few months ago I picked up Sony pc9 MiniDV camcorder. The answer to your question is it all depends on what you are capturing. If your going from dvtape that you took with the camcorder and make a vcd then that vcd will look great. However, like I said it all depends. If your going to use the camcorder to bring in footage (Or anything) from vhs the quality will not be better than the original.

If I bring in footage from my HI-8 camcorder with the AIW using a SVHS cable and then bring in the Same footage using the Camcorder as a passthough, the footage brough in with the minidv will be better......but not by much. If you want to get the mini dv to take video than I highly recommend it, however if the main purpose is to use it as a pass though, don't bother.

Digital tape is great but DON't count on it to last forever, its still a tape such as HI-8 or VHS and will go bad. Yeah the digital picture will remain the same if the tape lasts, but once the tape goes so does the picture.