Please help with capture device!!

[RazorFire]

Helo i am a newb to video editing and i have a question. I am starting to shoot short films and will be using Vegas Video for editing. I will be using 3 different types of camcorders. Digital-8 Hi-8 and VHS-C.
MY QUESTION IS, what capture device do you guys reccomend that will capture my digital and analog signals. I want somthing that will work with all types, digital and analog. Thank you guys for your info and support.
Regards,
RazorFire

[pijetro]

https://www.videohelp.com/capturecards.php?CaptureCardRead=Canopus%20ADVC-100&Search=Search#comments

I'll assume you have a firwire card...

[Redd]

Personally I do all my analog only capturing with a Canopus ADVC-100. All digital capturing via firewire. Look up the Canopus ADVC-100 on the tools page here.

[rcb]

Ditto on the advc 100.

Also, expect to add another hard drive. A single 40 gig drive will be bit small for any significant amount of video processing. DV transfer rates run at around 13 gigs/capture hr with the advc 100 .

[RazorFire]

Thanks for the tips guys, yeah i was looking at a Western Digital HD. 80 G.B.
Bestbuy has them for $50! So im gonna go with an extra 80 Gb HD and the Canopus 100. THanks once again guys!!!

[Will Hay]

Thanks for the tips guys, yeah i was looking at a Western Digital HD. 80 G.B.
Bestbuy has them for $50! So im gonna go with an extra 80 Gb HD and the Canopus 100. THanks once again guys!!!

You've made a great choice there (although personally I love Maxtor).
I wish I'd have had my ADVC-100 when I put my VHS-C tapes on DVD-r.
I used (the superb) ATI Radeon 64mb DDR ViVo but for me the ADVC-100 is superb.
Will

[lechtin]

Razorfire,

If your Digital-8 camcorder has analog video in and a passthru mode, you can just use that to capture (your camcorder would then behave the same as a ADVC-100) That's what I do with my miniDV. If you don't have passthru mode, you may still be able to record to digital-8 tape then transfer through firewire. By the way, you also should be able to just drop your analog Hi-8 tapes in your Digital-8 camcorder and capture them through firewire. My father's Sony does it.

[RazorFire]

If your Digital-8 camcorder has analog video in and a passthru mode, you can just use that to capture (your camcorder would then behave the same as a ADVC-100) That's what I do with my miniDV. If you don't have passthru mode, you may still be able to record to digital-8 tape then transfer through firewire. By the way, you also should be able to just drop your analog Hi-8 tapes in your Digital-8 camcorder and capture them through firewire. My father's Sony does it.

Hey thanks for the info yeah my Sony camcorder does have pass thru mode. So i guess for the digital and Hi-8 tapes i can use my Sony to connect directly to my firewire card. I may just hold off filming with my VHS-C camcorder untill i can get a Canopus ADVC 100. Then i could use the VHS-C when i get that. I expect to be using Vegas Video for editing. DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY OTHER SUGGESTION FOR A GOOD VIDEO EDITING SOFTWARE OUT THERE?? Thanks for all your help guys. Take care, Regards,
RazorFire

[lechtin]

Razorfire,

You CAN use your vhs-c camcorder. Just connect the video and audio outputs of that camcorder to the video and audio inputs of your Digital-8. By setting your Digital-8 in VCR mode and pressing record, the video and audio from the vhs-c will be directly transferred to your firewire card (you may have to set it up in the menus, I'm not sure about that). This is passthru mode (the signals pass through the camcorder for conversion on the way to the PC) This is EXACTLY what the ADVC100 does, you DO NOT need one if this works, unless you have other reasons of your own.

Being able to load your Hi-8 tape in a digital-8 camcorder is just a feature for backward compatibility, it is not the same as passthru mode.

As for video editing software, I used Ulead products, Premiere, Pinnacle Studio and Vegas. Vegas is the easier to learn and use and stands up to any of the others in terms of capabilities. You may want to get the Vegas+DVD Architect package which enables the MainConcept MPEG-2 encoding and AC-3 encoding if you plan to author DVDs (I don't use DVD Architect, but encode to MPEG2 and AC-3 to author in DVD-LAB.) AC-3 makes a perfectly compatible DVD as opposed to MPEG audio and leaves more room than LPCM for the video part.

[RazorFire]

Thanks for all the posts guys, found it very helpful and informative. Now al i need to do is start shooting my film and begin playing with the editing software. I think im gonna start out with Vegas Video 4.0 and see how that does for me and probally use DVD- Arcitecht.
Well thanks once again and post away if ya wanna add anything to this post.
Regards,
RazorFire