Best way to digitize from analog

[carusoswi]

I may be doing all I can now, but am always tinkering and thinking wishfully on how I might do things differently. Among my stable (growing stable) of cams is an early '90's era hi-end consumer model from Sony called a CCDV5000. It's a neat old hi-8 beast, and, although old in the tooth, takes some nice shots and is fun to hold and use.

Anyhow, the only transfer/digitizing solutions I've come up with so far work, but, it would be nice if I could streamline the process.

I use a Shuttle XPC small form factor PC for editing purposes, so I don't have room for specialized PCI or other cards dedicated to analog-->digital conversion.

I own a Dazzle DVC90 that will convert analog video to avi via usb2.0. But, the only software with which it seems to be compatible is Pinnacle's Studio (I have version 9). My experience with Pinnacle has always been less than stellar, and this solution seems to suffer accordingly. As Dazzle imports video, it leaves intermittent artifacts, usually affecting only one frame, but, in critical footage, these have to be edited out frame by frame - very annoying. I would love to be able to try the Dazzle with some other application or, best of all, find some method of digitizing from this cam via firewire.

Any suggestions would be most appreciated.

Thanks.

Caruso

[Chapman Photography]

If your short on options you could record to a set top dvd recorder then put the disc in you pc by using your NLE of choice

[carusoswi]

Originally Posted by Chapman Photography

If your short on options you could record to a set top dvd recorder then put the disc in you pc by using your NLE of choice

Thanks for the reply. I don't want to edit from source that has been printed to DVD. I'm not that short on options. I have a Digital8 and a miniDV recorder (it belongs to my son - I don't have it at the moment). My Digi8 does not have pass through (Sony TRV103). I can always dub via Svideo cable from the CCDV5000 to the TRV103, but, that require two 8mm cassettes used as destination tapes, and two hours of my time. After that, I have to spend another two hours transferring the two resulting Digi8 tapes via firewire to the computer.

If you have shot multicam shots of a scene (as I do often), and two of your source cams are analog, a three hour program will require 12 hours to transfer properly to the computer.

It's a shame the Dazzle thing doesn't make a cleaner transfer. That would be perfect - but, again, it's not perfect.

I would love to try that thing with Sony's vidcap program, but Vegas (I'm up to version 8pro now) captures only from HD and DV.

Again, thanks for your response.

Caruso

[Chapman Photography]

You should be able to capture to windows moviemaker via firewire or if nothing less usb

[Alley]

The Pinnacle USB capture box works very well for me. It does limit the capture to within Studio though, that is true. I have the one that came with Studio 10. Studio 11 now comes with one that is guaranteed to sync the voices 100% to the video. It also allows you to preview on a television.

You can then edit in whatever program you want. I also had an ADS box and it only works with premier elements. Supposed to work with Ulead, but I can't get it to work. It's old, and I find the colours less vibrant.

My sister uses a camcorder with passthrough (no tape required) but these are getting harder and harder to find.

ADS Pyro AV/DV sometimes sells as package deal with an editing software. Try googling it. Or get the latest Studio 11 with their new capture device.

Studio Moviebox Plus 11 is 119.99 - just checked. So you get the capture box and the software. Pretty good deal. Studio 11 is working quite well.