capturing question

[vmorris]

Hi I'm new to these forums and DV filmmaking in general, so I apologize if this is a dumb question or in the wrong forum. I've done a search, and browsed through the faqs, but I couldn't find an answer to my Q, so I thought I'd just ask it here. Does it "hurts" a camera's "life" to capture tapes from the camera to a computer. I've noticed that a lot of sellers in the site's marketplace highlight the fact that they use other cams to capture their video.

As I've said, I've only just started working w/ DV, and having only taken one class (in which we extensively captured directly from our DVX's to the macs) I was wondering if I should go out of my way to capture on one of the college's decks instead of doing it on my own cam.

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[Strobe Media]

if you have the option of capturing on a tape deck, go for it, otherwise, it won't kill your camera. The reason some people say that is because when playing back the footage is working the heads on the camera, causing back and forth and back and forth motions that will some point down the road a whiles a way, could cause head corrosion or just plain dirtyness. Most people with older cameras that know they've been through a lot will buy a tape deck to capture on, but if you have a newer camera you'll be fine. If you get a professional head cleaning every few hundred hours of use you'll be fine.