Hi all,

I'm not very clued up on modern technology so this forum is a great help. Is it possible to plug my Hi8 video camera directly into a DVD recorder and transfer the footage to DVD. I did try using my laptop to transfer the footage but it never worked. Any advice would be appreciated.

David

If you want an analogue copy which should be just fine, as the source material is analogue, just plug your camcorder output into the DVD recorder. You can do this with ideally RCA component leads. You could use an aerial type RF output from your camcorder into the back of a standard DVD recorder, and tune your DVD recorder to the output channel of your camcorder.

You could buy a Sony Digital8 camcorder. They can record in the new digital format on Hi8 tape, and they are also backward compatible with Hi8 recordings. This means using a firewire lead you can get a digital capture from your old Hi8 tapes, which then can be digitally manuliputed/edited, then burnt to DVD. Just a word of warning the Sony range of Digital8 camcorders are not all backwards compatible with Hi8.

The reason I know all of the above is that I've gone through the process of transferring all my old Hi8 cassettes to DVD... and I did make the mistake of buying the wrong Sony Digital8 camcorder too

Hope this helps.

Simply check what socket the video camera has for its video output and get a lead to connect to either a scart input on your recorder or phonos if it has them.

If you get a HDD/DVDR combo its easy to edit the camera footage and then remove unwanted bits or resequence it before burning to dvd

Thanks for that. I've not even bought a DVD recorder yet. I've just bought a Humax PVR and it occurred to me it would be useful to save some of the programs I recorded to DVD. It was then it occurred to me that I might be able to also transfer my Hi 8 tapes to DVD as I would like to have some backup copies of my tapes. Any recommendations for a DVD recorder which could do both these jobs well?

David

Any DVD recorder that has S-Video input should be fine.

If you go for a Pioneer HDD/DVDR combo it should do everything you need and you can configure the scart inout for s-video or RGB.

Unlike Panasonic the Pioneer can also record in PAL 60 should you ever want to transfer an NTSC VHS to your recorder(Panny requires pure NTSC)