--- You wrote: I figure I can leave DVD burning for later, after I perfect my video editing skills on videotape. --- end of quote --- Been there too.
First thing you need is an analog to digital converter. There are lots of ways to go but seems to me that you are interested in maintaining the wonderful quality of your Hi-8 material. So you should go for the analog to DV conversion. My solution for this was to buy a Canon ZR 40 camcorder for $500, now much cheaper though out of production. Later models are coperable in price. This model and later in the economical ZR series can do real time analog to digital conversion and d/a conversion as well. The results are excellent, despiet the low cost. It's like buying a D/A converter with a free camcorder attached. Which is how I justified the purchase. As others have said, this whole process is time consuming, but you want to do it well, possible edit a bit, maybe add titles, even correct for contrast and color. So there's more time spent. I'm way behind on my archiving work, but it is coming along. I like to go right to DVD. If you are using iDVD to burn and you keep the time per disk under an hour, the results are excellent and archival. You can then make fine vhs or 8mm copies from any DVD player. By the way, DVDs ARE cheap now, about $1 apiece, for an hour at best quality, much cheaper than comperable time on video tape (Hi-8 or miniDV, though you can't record over them. But there are many other advantages of disk over tape. I love my middle range Sony Hi-8 camcorders too. But it was almost impossible to find tape that didn't have some kind of flaw that caused dropouts. Some of my best tapes are full of them. No way to fix them, though running a cleaning tape through the player sometimes helps. The miniDV format is free of such nonesense. My $500 camcorder doesn't quite match the higher end old Hi-8s I own, especially in low light, but the images are always perfect. And the overall quality is very good. Technology marches on. Gets cheaper too. Hope this helps, Rich -- G-List is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- We have Apple Refurbished Monitors in stock! | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> G-List list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/g-list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
