Capture Card or Digi Camcorder to Capture?

[Toogy]

I currently have a Canopus 1394 in my system and it usually works great, although I have been having problems with it capturing bad quality VHS tapes.

I am in the market for a new Mini-Dv camcorder and was thinking of getting one with Analog-Digital Pass through.

My question is, do you think the camcorder would do as good a job as the canopus for video converting?

If so, I am thinking of selling my Canopus 1394 on ebay to help pay for the camera.

What do you think?

[Richard_G]

My question is, do you think the camcorder would do as good a job as the canopus for video converting?

Yes. In fact, it may well be better as most camcorders with analogue-DV passthrough also have an inbuilt TimeBase Corrector.

[djtomkins]

I'd be interested to know what camera you end up getting - I am at the point where I decide whether to buy a Canopus, or go for the expensive toy & buy a camcorder with pass through (see thread https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=197780)

[Richard_G]

Djtomkins, don't forget that toogy is in Canada so he will be getting an NTSC model camcorder that will almost certainly has analogue/DV passthrough as standard. The same model will be unavailable and of no use to you in the UK.

UK import duty tariffs are higher on a video recorder than they are on a camcorder. Therefore a camcorder capable of analogue and DV in attracts a higher import duty (because it can be used as, and is therefore classed as, a video recorder) than one that doesn't do this. As your average camcorder user won't have a use for this feature, it is disabled on European spec camcorders to keep the duty, and hence, the final selling price down. That is why only the higher end camcorders have it as standard and why companies will sell you add ons to enable it by rewriting the camcorder firmware.

That is why I said in my reply to you on the other thread to make sure whichever model you buy is capable of doing what you want it to do.

[Will Hay]

Yep.
For instance, the Sony DCR14 is the same as the DCR19.
Exactly, except the anaolgue in funtion is disabled on the DCR14.
Plus, there's £50 difference.
Bastards.
Personally I wouldn't want to use my camcorder for such regular use, hence the reason I bought the DCR14 and a Canopus ADVC-100.
Will

[lechtin]

Toogy,

I recommend a camcorder with pass-thru if you can afford it since you can do so much more with it. I got a Sharp miniDV WD450-something-something at Costco for 900$ (Canadian) that has pass-thru, a 26x OPTICAL zoom and an external microphone. It's only a bit weak in low-light scenes. The capture with pass-thru is flawless - no frames drops, no audio/video synchronization problems like you often see people having on this site.

It may be difficult to find this model since I believe they changed to a new one, but be careful while shopping - you need analog audio/video in, but I'm not sure it automatically means it is pass-thru (without going to tape first).

[Richard_G]

Personally I wouldn't want to use my camcorder for such regular use, hence the reason I bought the DCR14 and a Canopus ADVC-100.
Will

I don't think it is going to make much difference, if anything, it will prolong the life of the camcorder. Using it as a passthrough device, the tape mechanism isn't being used, only the electronics. It is only the tape guides, heads and motor that would suffer from excessive use. But these aren't being used at all. Keeping it switched on and powered up for a couple of hours at a time is probably going to do less harm than putting it in a cupboard and only bringing it out to shoot video of the kids at Christmas and during the summer holidays.

When I took one of my other camcorders in for a service recently (a well used Sony DCR-VX700e), I was talking to the engineer. He was saying the virtually every non-mechanical fault on older camcorders was caused by electrolytic capacitors drying out and degrading. In many cases the camcorders had hardly been used and it was a result of them sitting in a cupboard in a centrally heated house rather than being used that had caused the degradation.

[indolikaa]

I use both capture card (ATI AIW 9000 Pro) and camcorder passthru (DCR-TRV120) on my system. Both produce excellent results. I use the ATI for realtime MPEG captures and the Digital8 for DV.avi captures that need extensive work before reaching their final product stage.

[Toogy]

Well I bought a Sony DCR-TRV38 and so far it does a MUCH better job at capturing crappy quality VHS tapes.

The ADVC-1394 couldn't handle the tapes and would constantly freeze and the audio was all messed up.

I just captured 2 hours of VHS tape I have wanted to capture for the last six months flawlessly with 0 dropped frames.

And to think I was actually going to buy a Time Base Correcter to try and fix this problem.