Analog to Digital to Capture

62cwil · Post by **62cwil** » Mon Jan 31, 2005 5:53 am

I have a Sony analog camcorder. I believe I have heard that I can plug the cable from my sony to my Digital Cannon and then capture as though I had taken digital from the beginning. Is that so and has anybody ever done that and how did it work?

Post by **Ken Berry** » Mon Jan 31, 2005 6:19 am

You will have to check your Canon manual to see what it says. Some Canons can act as a direct bridge between the analogue camera and your computer, simply throughputting and converting the original video on the fly. But some, such as mine (430i) only go part way -- you can connect an analogue video camera to them, but you have to record to the Canon's digital cassette, and then you can capture _that_ tape by connecting the camera to computer via Firewire cable. In fact, I have tried this, following the manual closely, but could not get it to work. In the end, I had to go out and buy an external analogue capture device, which works fine.

THoff · Post by **THoff** » Mon Jan 31, 2005 7:02 am

The camcorders destined for the European market tend to have this feature disabled because of a higher tax rate being applied to VCRs and devices that can be used as such, but a US domestic camcorder should be able to do this.

All you should have to do is connect the outputs from your analog camcorder to the Canon, and put it in playback mode (i.e. non-filming). It should at the same time feed DV out the FireWire connection, which you can then record on your PC.

rwindeyer · Post by **rwindeyer** » Mon Jan 31, 2005 9:35 am

And, if it's anything like my Sony, take the cassette out of the Canon when you are doing this.
When you press the Capture button, the digital camcorder will try to oblige by starting the tape that it has in situ - and it will send that down for capture. If there is no tape present, you will be able to capture what's coming in via the analogue connection.