Tom,

     I picked up my Sony Media Converter for just $319. You can get the
now older Sony DVMC-DA1 for even less than that. The bottomline is
that it is cheaper to do it this way than to invest in a new digital video
camera. If you don't have any video camera, then I would suggest buying
one of those instead of a media converter. However, there are a ton of
people who already have decent working regular 8mm camcorders and
I see no reason that they should have to go out and spend another $600
to $2000 on a digital video camera.

http://www.sel.sony.com/SEL/consumer/handycam/accessories/i-dvmcda1.html

http://www.insanely-great.com/reviews/da1.html

http://www.supremevideo.com/Camcorders/sonycamcorders/dvmcda1.htm

http://www.supremevideo.com/Camcorders/sonycamcorders/dvmcda2.htm

http://www.apple.com/imac/dv.html

I quote from the Apple page: "if you have a stack of home videos in VHS
format and wish you could use clips from them on your DV-model iMac, you
can do that, too: you can get a convertor box that lets you convert
VHS-format videos to digital video. It's as simple as that. (The Sony
DVMC-DA1 is one such converter box. It converts analog video to DV,
converts DV to analog, adapts non-DV camcorders, and supports iMovie.)"

  The main difference between the DMVC-DA1 and DA2 is that the 1 doesn't
have LANC and the 2 does. This may or may not be important to you. My Sony
8mm camcorder is LANC capable. So, the DA2 made sense for me.  The
DVMC-DA2 is absolutely great. So small and yet so powerful. Fits in the
palm of your hand and weighs less than a half pound. Simplistic and
elegant. Use an S-video VHS VCR or 8mm deck and you are in major
business. Or, just go straight from the 8mm camcorder to the media
converter and back out to a standard VHS VCR. The only problem is for
those who need PAL. This is a NTSC product all the way. PAL and SECAM
users are out of luck.

     Here's an interesting link regarding the RocketFire PCI Firewire card.

http://www.barefeats.com/fire5.html

Rodney


[And here is more info he sent me on what LANC stands for. Thanks Rodney.]

Tom,

     LANC stands for Local Application Control Bus. Don't ask me why they
chose the
letters LANC to stand for what it does. :-) LANC, also known as Control-L,
is an editing protocol which has been included on some camcorders and VCRs
for at least ten years.
The main use is in linear editing, in which (for instance) you have two
different source
decks, a video mixer, and a record deck and you want to assemble a finished
video with
various segments from the two source tapes (normally called "A" and "B").
This setup is
called an A-B Roll in linear editing jargon. LANC is the physical means by
which an external
box ("LANC controller") directs the three decks to rewind, advance, stop,
start, and enter record mode. In addition, LANC camcorders can be
controlled remotely by a LANC remote
just like the IR remote, in some cases allowing zoom, focus, and quasi-stop
frame or
time-lapse sequences. (The TRV900 has a built-in intervalometer for
time-lapse, but
most other cameras lack this feature, and the few commercial LANC
controllers with time-lapse are apparently discontinued.) Some underwater
housings allow control of
the camera via a LANC wire.

     Like all other current Sony camcorders, my Sony is equipped with a
3/32" stereo jack for LANC control. Physically the format is 9600 baud
serial, one-line bidirectional (open collector); eight bytes per video
frame. Control L is a two-way serial open collector 9600 baud protocol.
Cameras (control-L) use a three pin sub-mini jack that has ground on the
sleeve, power (up to 100ma unregulated 5-9v) at the tip and LANC signal on
the ring.

     VCRs with the five pin mini-DIN connector have DC out on pin 1, LANC
bus on pin 4 and GND on pin 5.  Pin 3 may be a power switch line (ground to
switch power on and off) and pin 2 may put out a square wave locked to the
video frames.  (pins 2 & 3 are optional, not used on
consumer equipment.)

     The LANC bus is an open collector so it is normally pulled high to
about 5v and is pulled low to send commands or status information. You can
hook the LANC signal directly to the input of a 1488 RS232 line driver and
feed that into your PC serial port and capture the 9600 baud data stream.
It will have to be inverted before you use it (00 will read as FF).

     The data stream is 8 bytes, then a gap (1.7ms? until the end of the
current frame) then 8 bytes for the next frame, another gap and so on. If
you can write your serial driver to sync to that gap you can read it
easily.

      The camcorder puts out an 8 byte data packet with each video frame.
The first two bytes are for controllers to command the camera and are
usually 00 00. The next two are for tuners and are also usually 00 00. The
last four bytes are for the VCR status and carry the counter and several
other status bits.

     Firewire DV cameras can be controlled by Premiere, Final Cut and
iMovie, etc. Yet, again,
since most people still don't have a digital camcorder, but most do have an
8mm nowadays,
LANC is more helpful. While my Sony is not Firewire, I can still control it
in the editing
program. So, that is one less hand that I need and one less remote control
I need to be juggling
to edit my movie. :-) Just be sure to tell your readers that I am ONLY
telling them to buy a
Sony DVMC-DA1 or DVMC-DA2 if they don't have a digital camcorder at all. If
they do then it would be stupid to buy a media converter. For people like
me who have an 8mm camera, but don't want to go into debt for the cost of a
new digital camcorder, then the media converter
is cheaper. Maybe in a few years, that won't be true, as the low-end
cameras are getting down
close to the price of a DVMC-DA1 or 2. If one day you can get a digital
camcorder for $400 and a media converter for $300, I'd suggest getting the
digital camcorder instead. :-)

Rodney