Convert analog to digital (TRV25 or Panasonic HS2)

[tyzak]

I am looking for some experiance in helping me decide whether to purchase the Sony TRV25 or the Panasonic HS2 for digitizing my analog tape. I have ruled out a capture card for the PC it seems to be the lowest quality. The pass through camcorder gets the vidio to the PC the easiest which then I can edit and then burn through my Sony DRU 500. But if I am sacrificing quality by not using the HS2 I would rather not go the TRV25 route.

[Hojobey]

I have the Sony TRV-18. I have used it a great deal to pass analog through it to put it in DV format. The quality is superb. When I say superb, you must remember that the quality will not be better than what you put into it.

However, I have recently noticed that if I am capturing a lot of video at one time (i.e., over 40 minutes in one capture), the audio begins to slip a little (an 1/8 second) out of synch with the video. I have posted this issue on the forum and it never received a response. I have also read another person's similar problem (do a search for "analog" and "synch" and "sony".

My way of dealing with this is to capture in 30 minute clips and then "joining" the avi's, which is very easy and creating one MPEG. Now the minor synch problem is fixed. I hope this was helpful.

[ncgoldwinger]

tyzak,

The quickest and easiest way would be with the HS2. (Mine is due in tomorrow...YEAH!) If all you are wanting to do is just a simple transfer with no editing that would be my choice. I have the Sony TRV27 but haven't used it to transfer anything into my system using the passthru. Using the passthru on your TRV25 into the computer would mean the captured file would then have to be re-encoded. So depending on how long a clip you had and how fast your system is this could take a long time to do if you've never done any video encoding before. With the HS2 you would eliminate that process..

Regards
Rick

[thxkid]

yes you can edit with the HR2 if useing the hard drive right down to the frame, but just cuts only, but can remove all those ugly commericals or unwanted camcorder boring moments also, My brother has the HR2 and loves it I have the DMR-E20 and when I transfer VHS it actually looks slightly better than the tapes because of all the filters and TBC that panasonic uses, also add a Sampo 631CF DVD Player with firmware upgrade and backup ANY! DVD you have or want.

[ktnwin]

A digital camcorder with pass thru is an excellent video capture device. Note that you need a DVD writer to create DVD.

Comparing with the DMR-HS2, here are the pro/con
DigCamcorder/DVD writer pros:
1) very flexible editing, virtually no limitation (only by the software you use)
2) good menu creation options (again depending on your software)
3) depending on your DVD writer, you can write at 2X or 4X
4) could rip DVD and burn it with DVD writer (you only need DVD writer for this, nothing to do with the camcorder)
the cons:
1) conversion from DV to MPEG-2 is slow (unless you use expensive software like CCE)

DMR-HS2 pros:
1) enhance quality during capture
2) real time capture, easy, no brainer. No compatibility
the con:
1) limited editing capability
2) write to DVD in real time (cannot do 2X or 4X)
3) can't copy or dup DVD (it seems to be very complicate, please correct me if I am wrong here)