Sony D8 camcorder

[jakster]

I need to buy a camcorder with the facility to upload to PC for editing. I am thinking of the Sony DCR-TRV280. It uses D8 digital tapes. Any comments, advice?

Thanks.

[CogoSWSDS]

I have the Sony DCR-TRV260. Digital8 Camcorder. Seems solid enough. Image quality is decent unless the light is low, then the picture can be noisy. My advice would be to crank up the lights when you are taping indoors with this camera. Much easier to transfer video to computer using Firewire than with PCI-based analog capture cards over composite cable. I don't have audio sync problems with this camera when I transfer using firewire (I don't do analog transfers from this camera). Don't use camera's USB port for video transfer - looks like crap if you do. If your computer doesn't have firewire for transfer, go buy a firewire card. They're not very expensive at all and the quality of the transfer is much better.

CogoSWSDS

[edDV]

All Digital8 and MiniDV camcorders will transfer digital DV format video to a PC over the IEEE-1394 (aka I-Link or Firewire) port.

Consider paying a bit more for a model with the "analog pass through" feature. This allows capture of analog inputs (e.g. VCR, live TV, computer output, etc.) to DV format at fairly high quality.

Some Digital8 camcorders will also play analog 8mm or Hi8 tapes (1x speed only) plus encode them realtime to DV format over the IEEE-1394 port. All early models had this feature. Only the higher end current models can do this.