jvc HR-DVS3U (dv) OR new vcr + dvd recorder?

12th May 2005 18:44 #1

Member

hey everyone,

i am in charge of capturing all of the content that comes in for speeddemosarchive.com on vhs. i have to deal with a wide range of quality (from only slightly crappy crap to the crappiest of crap) and i know that my method of capture right now sucks - just composite out of a four head hitachi vcr to an all in wonder. for starters, i need to stop using composite and go to s-video, but i thought i should look at other options as well, and one of those was the jvc HR-DVS3U - a dual deck svhs/mini dv unit - and i was told it would just output dv over firewire and i would be done all in one step.

well, i was so sure i knew what i was doing when i decided on buying the jvc HR-DVS3U - then i read that it can't send vhs to dv over firewire - you have to dub to minidv first. so, worthless to me. also read some pretty convincing stuff that said the dv output was garbage. so started looking at the SR-VS30U instead; it looks to be the "professional" equivalent of the HR-DVS3U, and can go directly from vhs to dv (firewire). well, saw bad reviews of it as well, and it's ~$100 more (for a grand total just south of $900). that's pretty steep for something that might be crap.

my question is, what do you think of, instead of messing with dv, buying a nice 7 head or something svhs vcr, going s-video from that to a nice dvd recorder (probably pioneer based on what i've read here)? then i would just take the vobs and go to divx or whatever using vdub mod. also i read that at least one of the pioneer units records both ntsc and pal signals? that's more than can be said for the HR-DVS3U if true. afaik both of these units combined (svhs deck + pioneer dvd recorder) would still cost less than the jvc monstrosity. sorry if the jvc business puts this in the wrong forum, but this looked like my best bet. don't need experience with the jvc to reply, just let me know your experiences with [pioneer] dvd recorders "capturing" crap vhs.

thanks in advance.