Hello all, I have about 20 filled mini-dv tapes, all with non-continuos timecodes. As you might imagine, this problem has caused me two years of headaches in "post production (ie, getting video from camcorder to pc in order to convert to DVDs). " They were all recorder using a Sharp VL-SD20. After some research, I found I could clone the mini-DV tape using two camcorders which will solve my timecode problems (ie I will now have my video on a mini-DV tape with continuous timecodes). I was also told this would result in ZERO loss in quality.... Soooo, I got a second camcorder (a Panasonic PV-GS32), hooked them up via firewire and recordered from one to the other. I saw a SIGNIFICANT loss in quality!! Am I incorect re no quality loss? Did I do something wrong? Any help would be greatly appreciated... Kagswhit out Also, could anyone recommed a good program to help me get my video to the pc with the best possible quality? I am not interested in editing, just want to transfer over video and then convert to DVDs....
Dont know much about timecodes, but my dad has a separate dv tape machine in his pc that will read any mini dv tape from any camcorder, I have a sony he has jvc, he often borrows my tapes to pinch footage, maybe thats a thing you could use.
If you are transferring from one MiniDV cam to another using firewire there should be zero quality loss. I have filmed a few events where I made a clone of the tape(s) for myself and turned in the master. Firewire is just transferring a data stream, so unless there is some serious break in that stream everything should be fine. I wish I could tell you why this is happened, but I don't know. Maybe a bad cable or camera. Read up in the camera manual about dubbing to another tape and make sure there aren't any settings that need to be changed. That would be my first guess. As for transferring to PC via firewire WinDV is a free program that works well, or if you have any editing progams they should do transfer also.
