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MINIDV tapes

MiniDV, DVD, Hard Drive, 8 mm, High Def, brands, import / capture techniques, settings ... talk about camcorders in here.

MINIDV tapes

Postby Doc K » Thu Apr 05, 2012 10:10 am

My Canon Mini DV camcorder broke (it was quite old) and I have a bunch of tapes with footage on them.

What is a CHEAP way to get the footage onto my external hard drive?

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Re: MINIDV tapes

Postby Dave McElderry » Thu Apr 05, 2012 10:31 am

Well there's the obviously cheapest way, which is to find someone who would let you use their MiniDV camcorder for the job. You likely don't know anyone with one or you wouldn't have asked the question. :) The next step up would be to find a used one on eBay. It just has to work, not look good. You could even resell it when you're finished and make the total cost even less.
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Re: MINIDV tapes

Postby Steve Grisetti » Thu Apr 05, 2012 10:50 am

Yep, I'm with Dave. You can probably pick up a used miniDV cam on eBay for much cheaper than you could hire some service bureau to capture your video to a hard drive for you.
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Re: MINIDV tapes

Postby Bobby » Fri Apr 06, 2012 8:08 am

I concur Doc.

Not sure of your experience level, but once you get a device to physically read the tapes, you would need to "capture" the video and that runs in "real time" - I.e. you would have to play each tape at normal speeds to capture. That could take an hour per tape - a daunting task if you have a lot of tapes.
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