[toronto_dude]

I'm trying to figure out whether I can take an 8mm analog tape, put it into a Sony Camcorder with "Signal Convert Function" and have it convert the tape to DV out through firewire. I've looked and this question seems like it should have an easy answer but I can't find the answer. One site said that you need to dub first. I'm thinking of buying the Sony DCR TRV340 Camcorder to do this conversion. Alternatively, I could buy a capture card and use a regular old analog camcorder to transfer via RCA, but I've heard the Time Based Corrector (TBC) is present in the camcorder but not in the average capture card. I've seen some great TV capture cards, like say the "Diamond TV Wonder HD 650 Combo PCI Express Tuner Card", which can take RCA input, but I don't know how well they would convert the analog signal.

Can anyone clear the confusion for me? I'm tired of searching everywhere for an answer. Much thanks..

[senu]

Using a Digital 8 camcorder that works is fine, if you can find one
I would give TV capture cards a miss
There are products like THIS
otherwise
Do a search on here , this has been covered more than a few times

[toronto_dude]

Thanks for your reply. I was originally looking at this article that stated dubbing:

Benchmark: Sony DCR-TRV510 Digital8 Camcorder

But I discovered it does not actually have analog to digital pass through. I'll be going after a DCR-TRV340 instead.

[senu]

Good luck in finding a good working copy
Sony stopped making them 4 years ago

[jwramsay]

I have a Digital 8 Sony camcorder, with 120 in the title, sorry can't remember the exact name.

It certainly can play 8mm analogue tapes and outputs them as DV over the firewire.

[senu]

Originally Posted by PDP-434HDE

I have a Digital 8 Sony camcorder, with 120 in the title, sorry can't remember the exact name.

It certainly can play 8mm analogue tapes and outputs them as DV over the firewire.

Possibly the DCR-TRV 120E
I also have a TRV620 which is similarly capable as well as having "pass through"
The problem is that Sony initially conceptualised the D8 format with 8mm backwards compatibility.
They withdrew this ability in latter models for all but a few models, then stopped making D8 camcorders altogether. Compared to Hi8 and 8mm ( and indeed MiniDV ( which is still currently being produced albeit les so now) it has had a very short lifespan
I had felt Sony ( as the only producer of D8) could not be relied upon to sustain support for it and did not want a bank of 110s of footage which would become inaccessible later on, ( not playable on any other camcorder) so made the switch to MiniDV very early on even when the D8 model was still new
As it happens I was proved right in these misgivings