Does capturing with a camcorder really damage it?

[IL_video]

Hi,

Traditionally my company have captured their miniDV tapes using a capture machine. This machine recently broke and would have costed more to fix than to buy a new one.

Now we are capturing the tapes using our actual cameras via firewire using Adobe Premiere. We have been told by a former employee that this is very bad for the cameras.

We are in a situation where we would like to purchase a new capture machine but they are very very expensive so to keep costs low we want to keep capturing using the cameras.

So my questions are as follows:

1) Is capturing directly from the camcorder actually bad for the camera?
2) Do the risks from doing this warrant spending £1000 on a miniDV capture machine?

Also if anyone can suggest any cheap capture machines (or other methods) that would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks for your help!

Mark

[guns1inger]

1) Debatable. Yes, there is extra wear and tear from the playback during capture. and yes, there is a slight risk to the firewire port depending on how it is connected. Is this significant ?

2) No.

[ZAPPER]

Nothing will last forever, except maybe time.

Every second of cam use is one second closer to the end of its service life and on the other hand, every second that the cam sits idle, it gets closer to the end of its service life. Can't win.

Unless this is some big production set up a cam for capture should work fine and have the versitility of being a cam as well. Avoid frequent shuttles by capping the whole tape in one shot and then cut and edit on the PC.

[dfisher052]

OR, you could buy a cheap DV camera and use that for dubbing purposes. With tomorrow being Black Friday (if you are in the states) you could probably pick up one for less than $200. Our local Public Access TV station does just that. They shoot in DV & then dub using cheap video cameras. Even under those conditions the cameras do a great job & they have not had to replace any, so far.

[JohnnyMalaria]

If your production cams are prosumer or better then it wouldn't be a bad idea to get a cheapo consumer cam for the capturing. Might as well let a cheap one croak in order to let the better ones last longer.

Also, keep to one brand of tapes. Different brands have different formulations that are known to lead to gumming up and other wonderful problems when mixed-and-matched.