MiniDV as a pass-thru??

[jm78]

I'm looking to buy a MiniDV camcorder in order to act as a pass-through to capture VHS sources. My question is this - with this setup, are there any MiniDV camcorders in which you don't have to record to MiniDV first? It would be a hassle to do this with every VHS tape I was trying to capture.

If no MiniDV camcorders do this, are there any Digital8?

Thanks very much.

John

[SilentRAGE]

Make sure you have a analog input and it can be done. I know most sonys and jvcs have this. it's a s-video, audio l, audio r, & video, then you can feed any anlog source right into the camercorder and capture onto mindv tape.

[jm78]

Make sure you have a analog input and it can be done. I know most sonys and jvcs have this. it's a s-video, audio l, audio r, & video, then you can feed any anlog source right into the camercorder and capture onto mindv tape.

Well, what I'm trying to do is avoid recording to MiniDV tape first. I'm trying to use a camcorder as a pass-through to go from:
VHS => A/V in => camcorder => DV out => firewire port.

Are there any camcorders that might do this? I just spoke to JVC customer service and they said that none of their cameras will do this. The Canon DV ZR series does this however, at least that is what is shown in their manuals.

Does anyone have any experience with a setup like this and could recommend a certain camcorder?

Any help would be much appreciated.

John

[House de Kris]

I've got a Canon ZR-20 and it CANNOT do the passthrough thing. Well, at least I haven't been able to make it happen. Perhaps someone could explain how to for me.

[jm78]

I've got a Canon ZR-20 and it CANNOT do the passthrough thing. Well, at least I haven't been able to make it happen. Perhaps someone could explain how to for me.

Yeah, the ZR-20 will not do it. Only the ZR-40, ZR-45mc & ZR-50mc models will do it. I just checked all their manuals, which are available here:

http://www.canondv.com/downloads/manuals.html

Hope that helps.

[Ron Lauziere]

I do it all the time through Sony's TRV cameras with anolog in.
No tape needed in machine

[Tommy]

I've got a sony and it does the passthough. Its a pc9.

[droolian01]

Hi, i've got a panasonic nv-ds38b and it can do the pass-through without tape thing.
If you live in the EU then be very careful to check the specs, i would suggest a careful read of the manual. Due to silly EU import rules any camcorder imported into the EU (all are made outside EU!) that is capable of having DV in and/or analogue in is counted as a video recording device and thus attracks extra import duty on top of any charged for it being a camcorder. So there are models that are only sold in the EU that have DV in and analogue in (and pass-though) disabled in the camcorders software. The more expensive (in the EU) fully enabled ones are are just the standard models available in the rest of the world (but without the premium price).

So if you live in the EU VERY CAREFULLY check those specs.

[Scav]

I can do pass-thru with my Sony TVR-20 with vcr->analog->camcorder->firewire->PC. Works fine, the only drawback being I am locked into capturing at 720x480.

[Valnar]

Does anyone know if the Canon Elura series does the pass-through?

I'm interested in the new Elura 40MC that is coming out.

Robert

[jtor]

If you are considering Canon miniDV cams, and would like to check a feature before you buy (and as always, salespeople couldn't help a bit);
you might want to check Canon's website (canondv.com) as they have the camcorder's manual in there for downloads (pdf).

I'm not sure about upcoming models. I do know that manuals for current models are available.

hope this helps.

[Valnar]

Can anybody here with a Canon Elura 10 or 20 model do the pass-through? How is the quality?

Robert

[jbarr]

I just purchased a Canon ZR45MC MiniDV camcorder, and I am VERY happy with the results. I connect it to my PC via a cable connected to a Pinnacle DV FireWire card. I am running Windows XP and am using Pinnacle Studio 7 (came with the card) to do the captures. It's a no-brainer, and I have never had any frame losses. I'm sure other programs like VirtualDub would work just fine for captureing, but I haven't gotten that far yet.

So far, I have captured:
1. video directly to the PC
2. video recorded to MiniDV tape to the PC
3. I have captured VHS video to my PC through Analog to DV pass-thru

One observation: In Pinnacle Studio 7, the "Make Movie" option was garbage for me. This is the function of converting your captured video into another format (MPEG for VCD, etc.). Instead, I used TMPGEnc to convert the captured file from .avi to a MPEG VCD format, and the quality was far superior. Studio 7's output was filled with digital artifacts.

[Valnar]

Thanks. Any others? I wanted to make sure the Elura series did it.

Robert