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Author
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Topic: FireWire / D-VHS conundrum
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Mike Olpin
Chop Chop!
![](http://www.film-tech.com/ubbmembers/1115g.jpg)
Posts: 1852
From: Dallas, TX
Registered: Jan 2002
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posted 09-02-2004 01:32 AM
I've been trying to put together a barebones editing workstation over the past few months. One of the items I needed was an analog VCR, to bring in footage from VHS. In my original plan, this would pass through a "DV bridge" to bring it into my Mac's FireWire port.
So, today I'm at Best Buy, and I see that they are selling their demo unit of JVC's D-VHS recorder. I look it over. It has 2 FireWire ports labled "iLink IN/OUT" It can play back Regular VHS, S-VHS, and D-VHS. So it should be able to play my analog VHS tapes out through the iLink port right? So I pick up this deck (got a HELL of a deal on it considering it retails twice what I paid) and bring it home.
Now, as I'm thumbing through the manual, it notes that it cannot pass DV signal out the firewire port. Nowwaitaminute! It says right on the front "iLink In/Out"! Aren't iLink/FireWire/DV/IEEE1394 all the same thing?? I fire up Google and do a search. The results confirm that the standards are Identical. Then I stumbled into someones HDTV forum.
As far as I can gather, "iLink" is used by HDTV to pass along MPEG2 data rather than DV. At first I thought, no problem, It will save me the time consuming prcess of converting DV to Mpeg2. But, apearently, It's not even standard MPEG2. Its an "Mpeg2 transfer stream". Apple has created an SDK for developers that includes sample prorams you can use to capture the streams, But once they're on your HD, there isn't a lot you can do with them (untill a developer actually puts the SDK to work).
So, what should I do? Should I return it and get my money back? Should i keep it? I figure I can use it as ann expensive analog vcr for now, and use its D-VHS features down the road when HDTV is more comon and affordable. Plus, perhaps someone will develop a program that will allow me to edit the files sometime in the future.
It cost me about $240. If you think this item is absolutely useless, I could really use that money for better things. But, I could go cheap on a few meals over the next few weeks, If this device really is as awsome as some of the HDTV people say it is.
What should I do?
JVC HM-DH3000U sans remote (can be ordered relatively inexpensively)
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