GVD200 Sony digital8 walkman- is anyone using one?

[Keebler]

Hi,

Just wondering if anyone is using the GVD200 for transferring digital8/hi8/8mm tapes?

I was using camcorders, but they've started to die on me and now that digital8 camcorders are becoming increasingly harder to find (especially ones that playback the older formats), i think this is the way to go.

Any feedback?

Cheers,
Keebler

 

[notjustjay]

You're assuming that the deck is built better than the cameras.

I suspect they just take the same Digital8 mechanism (or miniDV, as the case may be) and drop it into a square box with a screen as opposed to a camcorder. And for that you get to pay hundreds more.

I would personally buy another Digital8 camcorder (or even 2 or 3 if you're really worried -- you'd still come out ahead of the deck).

Mine has had no problems, but I keep thinking one day I am going to transfer my D8's to mini DV or even capture it all to a hard drive (and burn the footage onto a compressed DVD, i.e. that would be better than nothing should anything happen to my tapes).

 

[Keebler]

You're assuming that the deck is built better than the cameras.

I suspect they just take the same Digital8 mechanism (or miniDV, as the case may be) and drop it into a square box with a screen as opposed to a camcorder. And for that you get to pay hundreds more.

I would personally buy another Digital8 camcorder (or even 2 or 3 if you're really worried -- you'd still come out ahead of the deck).

Mine has had no problems, but I keep thinking one day I am going to transfer my D8's to mini DV or even capture it all to a hard drive (and burn the footage onto a compressed DVD, i.e. that would be better than nothing should anything happen to my tapes).

that's a good point - I am assuming (and hoping) that the mechanism is stronger than the camcorders. If anything, i thought maybe it would be less chance of something coming loose by sitting there as opposed to potentially walking around. But the problem with the digital8s is that i'm finding them hard to find (brand new..would not buy used)...especially ones that do both digital8 and hi8/8mm's. I bought a sony trv480 last year just for transferring and the thing might be dead (have to bring it on or try a different cleaning method). i haven't put that many tapes through it for it to die so i'm not too happy about it. My older TRV720 has been put through the ringer and may just be dying now and it's 5 years older.

good point about transferring dig8 to miniDV. I have about 76 hours of digital8 from my family videos - that's about $380 in miniDV tapes alone - doh!

this is the only part of the business that drives me nuts - i understand wear and tear, but sometimes it's painful to swallow

ultimately, i need 2 or 3 devices - 1 digital8 camcorder for my own personal use (i'll have the 480 serviced to see if it can be salvaged for that and even then, i don't feel too comfortable filming family memories with something maybe going wrong) and a device to transfer all 8 formats or 1 camcorder to do digital8 and one for the other 2 8 formats.

Cheers,
Keebler

 

[notjustjay]

How much do you trust hard drive storage? 76 hours of D8 footage is about 100 gigs of hard drive space. A hard drive that size is easily under $100.

Edit: Oops, damn my math. Keebler's right, that's 1000 gigs.

Add a couple bucks for a Firewire enclosure and you're pretty much good to go. If you're worried about the media breaking down then perhaps every few years you'd buy another drive and clone the contents of the old one.

Come to think of it, maybe that's what I should do.

I have a TRV320 that's seen all kinds of abuses and appears to be still going strong, but I agree that the quality of Sony's Digital8's have been steadily declining as they are probably phasing it out completely. I think the x20 series was the prime, everything kinda went downhill after that as they kept trying to make them smaller, tiny CCD's, etc.

 

[Keebler]

How much do you trust hard drive storage? 76 hours of D8 footage is about 100 gigs of hard drive space. A hard drive that size is easily under $100. Add a couple bucks for a Firewire enclosure and you're pretty much good to go. If you're worried about the media breaking down then perhaps every few years you'd buy another drive and clone the contents of the old one.

Come to think of it, maybe that's what I should do.

I have a TRV320 that's seen all kinds of abuses and appears to be still going strong, but I agree that the quality of Sony's Digital8's have been steadily declining as they are probably phasing it out completely. I think the x20 series was the prime, everything kinda went downhill after that as they kept trying to make them smaller, tiny CCD's, etc.

the hard drive storage is one way to go, but i think you need to add another 0 b/c at approximately 13 GBs (full quality), 76 tapes would be about 988 GBs. terabyte HDs are out so it is a possibility.

i'm going to buy the GVD200 i think for the business side and for the personal side, i'm going to see if the 480 can be fixed adequately and retire it for family use. if that doesn't fly, then maybe i'll transfer the digi8s to miniDV and buy a decent minidv player going forward. all of that would duplicate the footage so it's backed up.

it's going to be interesting moving forward. maybe i just need a big a&& server at home for all of this

 

[notjustjay]

the hard drive storage is one way to go, but i think you need to add another 0 b/c at approximately 13 GBs (full quality), 76 tapes would be about 988 GBs. terabyte HDs are out so it is a possibility.

Dang, you are right of course. What was I thinking. I used 1.3 gigs instead of 13... (Can you tell I haven't edited any video lately?)

But yeah, we're rapidly getting to a point where hard drive storage like that is a real possibility. A 300-500 gig hard drive is getting surprisingly cheap.

Sorry about the mixup there.

 

[Keebler]

Dang, you are right of course. What was I thinking. I used 1.3 gigs instead of 13... (Can you tell I haven't edited any video lately?)

But yeah, we're rapidly getting to a point where hard drive storage like that is a real possibility. A 300-500 gig hard drive is getting surprisingly cheap.

Sorry about the mixup there.

no worries about the mixup - i just wanted to correct you before you went and bought a few smaller HDs to set everything up