How to capture analog video through Mini Dv Camera

[harris5108]

Is there a way to capture analog video from a vcr into my Sony Trv 900 mini dv camera? When I plug the rca cables into the camera I can see a picture, and hear sound on my camera. But as soon as I plug the firewire cable into the camera the picture and sound is gone. I looked through all the settings in my camera and can't find anything. I heard this camera has the pass through capability, but I can't figure it out to save my life. Thanks for all and any help. It is greatly appreciated.

[sdispun]

Just a stupid thought...
what if you [rec] while playing? or else just [rec] the image on to MiniDV tape, then dump it to PC later. like I said.. just a thought that is if cam has [rec] option from RCA.

[harris5108]

If I record onto a mini dv tape and input into the computer the input size is 720x480 and when I go to make my vcd it has to re-encode which takes forever where as if I was able to input at 352x240 the project would not have to re-encode it would just burn. Thanks for all your help.

[yg1968]

On a Sony, you have to enable "DV out" on the camcorder's menu in order to transfer the video directly to your computer via firewire.

Secondly, DV is captured in an avi file. So you have to encode to mpeg anyways. TMPGEnc is a bit slow. Ulead's DMF's encoder is faster, Dazzle DVD complete's encoder is even faster but it seems that the extra speed is at the expense of quality. DVD complete and Ulead DMF also have an optional real time software encoder but quality suffers.