[Lebodde]

How's that for a convoluted title?

OK, here is the deal. I bought an instructional video (VHS) that I want to watch on my iMac. So I thought I would simply record it to my Sony Digital8 camcorder first, then import that into iMovie and then go to iDVD.

But after about 15 seconds, I get a "Copy Inhibit" message from the Digital8 and it stops recording. I am guessing this is the Macrovision at work.

So I thought that I would simply feed the VHS into the D8 and hook that one up via Firewire to the iMac and just hit "Import" in iMovie. Essentially this is using the D8 as an analog video to digital via Firewire signal converter.

But as soon as you press Import in iMovie the program sets the D8 into play mode and I get whatever was on the tape in the D8 instead of the signal from the VHS which is just passing through the digicam.

Is there a way to tell iMovie to record whatever video signal is coming from the digicam without setting it into Play mode? I am hoping I can make this work because I only have to do this for one tape so I don't really want to buy a Formac or EyeTV or Sony converter.

Thank you for any help.

[ronbo]

Originally posted by Lebodde:
...So I thought that I would simply feed the VHS into the D8 and hook that one up via Firewire to the iMac and just hit "Import" in iMovie. Essentially this is using the D8 as an analog video to digital via Firewire signal converter.

But as soon as you press Import in iMovie the program sets the D8 into play mode and I get whatever was on the tape in the D8 instead of the signal from the VHS which is just passing through the digicam.

Is there a way to tell iMovie to record whatever video signal is coming from the digicam without setting it into Play mode? I am hoping I can make this work because I only have to do this for one tape so I don't really want to buy a Formac or EyeTV or Sony converter.

Thank you for any help.

If I understand what you're trying to do (input the VHS to your camera and pass the signal through via firewire to your Mac) you might have to set your camera to a certain setting to get it to work.

On my ZR40, I have to go into the VCR SET UP menu and set AV -> DV OUT to 'ON' for this to work.

Unfortunately, I think the Macrovision protection might still screw you up. I don't have any experience with this, but in the manual there were all sorts of notes/warnings about it not working.

Good luck.

[Mark E]

i agree with ronbo - you'll probably still encounter the same macrovision problem, i tried the same thing as you with my girlfriend's DV cam.

the only way around this is to buy a macrovision removal box.

this link really applies to DVD macrovision, but it's the same thing, so you should be ok with one of the units suggested here..

http://www.digital-digest.com/dvd/ar...n_general.html

-Mark

[Lebodde]

Thanks guys.

Based on a few of the links you posted I found that the cheapest way to get this done was to get the Sima Video Copy Master from BestBuy for $40. It effectively removes the macrovision problem.

I then copied the vhs to digital8 and then went into iMovie and iDVD.

It's quite a laborious process and if I had a lot of them to do (more than 20 hours worth) I would get that direct mpeg2 encoder mentioned in this thread.
http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hreadid=149405

Thanks again.

[willab]

I encountered the same problem with a zr 65 I took the tape out of the camera and it worked great

[DeathMan]

Its always the last thing you try. I had this problem, and I didn't even think to take out the freaking tape. Duh!

[TheBum]

Originally posted by willab:
I encountered the same problem with a zr 65 I took the tape out of the camera and it worked great

Same with the ZR40. I was starting to tear my hair out figuring out how to get the video to actually show up in iMovie with the camera in pass-through mode when I remembered that little detail.