SVHSc -> DV -> PC but i lose any date/time info

[jomk]

Hi - i've got about 40 SVHSc tapes which I'd like to get onto my PC (upgraded to win7-64, 8mb mem, plenty CPU and 2Tb discs, more to be added).

I can play them thru the Panasonic camcorder (NV-S88), output via S-video plus audio into a DV Panasonic (NV-EX21) camcorder and then output via DV to firewire port on the PC.

I've tried using a couple of capture options (Sony Vegas, Windows video capture (which creates files with the date when i captured my DV tapes from the EX21) and PowerDirector) but none of them can produce the date/time details for the SVHS tape.

I'm assuming it is getting 'lost' at the conversion to digital in the second camcorder.

Is there a better / working way to get the dates onto the file info on the PC?

Thanks in advance all.

[danno78]

S-VHS tapes can only have time/date embedded in the image. This must be done when the tape was recorded. After is not possible to recover time/date.
DV format (MiniDV, Digital8) have time/date separate from image on a special track and can be set on or off. With these format and right software (Enosoft DV Processor) is posible to burn the date on picture.
Your only solution is to burn manually (if you know the date of recording) with Enosoft DV or other similar tools.

[jomk]

Thanks Danno.

ok, thats not so good that the date time isn't there anywhere. I do have the date on screen at the beginning of lots of the clips - but it's going to be a long laborious job to record this by hand and then to add that date to the file/folder names when i store the files on the HDD.

I guess then that it's no help to use a capture card / device in the PC and miss out the DV conversion in the pana camcorder. Will I be getting reasonable conversion quality with this existing setup?

[danno78]

Is a mach between Panasonic camcorder and capture card. Which way is better? Thats depends on the capture card. Do some test and see. Capture cards allow uncompressed avi, camcorder compress in to DV format (5:1 ratio). Anyway, DV compression is light and many are happy with DV files because are smaller, easy to edit and trouble free capturing way. With capture cards more issue are possiblle.