Converting Old VHS Tapes?

[JCCanuck]

	Quote:			Originally Posted by pm-r
	A friend had a similar Sony handy cam he used as a "converter" to get the VCR VHS tape digitized onto his Mac a few years ago. I'm not sure of the cabling details etc. he used, but I do recall that a Firewire cable had to be used from his Sony to his Mac. Sony calls the FW cable an I-Link cable. Maybe some more useful info here: Sony eSupport - DCR-SX43 - Support Information and iMovie '09: Camcorder Support and iMovie: Importing both HD and SD content with Sony HDR series cameras or even the manual? http://media.datatail.com/docs/manual/60888_en.pdf PS: Even though I've got a very old Mac that could do the VCR-VHS conversion directly, we took advantage of a sale our local Costco store had last last year to do the VHS, and some old super-8 film movies conversions that didn't cost an arm and a leg to have done .

i think, I could be wrong, Costco has a deal on video transfers now, worth checking it out.
Also two years ago with pure rare luck my brother-in-law had an old Sony Hi8 Video Cam that was able to transfer my old hi8 tapes, analogue to digital to a computer (iMovie had no problem recognizing it and converting, just took a while). Quality was on par although originally it wasn't that great anyway. Save tons of $$$. The manual showed how to do a VCR too by VCR/Cam/iMac hookup. Any friends or family with an old Sony cam like this hanging around the house?

[pm-r]

	Quote:			Originally Posted by krs
	The problem with the DCR-SX43 is not getting the video from the camcorder to the Mac but getting the video signal from the VCR into the camcorder to digitize it. I looked at the manual and that particular camcorder doesn't have any video input ports the way I see it.

I don't recall the exact details, but I have a feeling he also may have needed to use some special Sony adapter cable from some ? port and then connect a FW cable, but don't quote me.

PS: He was and still is I believe the local Apple BC rep.

And maybe hard to believe, but I still have a working LC 630 in our basement area that has the Apple MPEG card and the Apple TV input and converter card installed that can capture/convert/translate and save the VSH tapes from our old VCR.

The trouble I encountered was finding an adequate size SCSI hard drive to save the data to, and then a method to transfer it and maybe burn to some CD or DVD etc., and the later DVDs weren't even invented for use with such a setup.