When capturing to a computer using a camcorder, capturing faster than real time is only possible with a hard drive recorder such as the Firestore FS-4. You simply hook your camcorder to this unit and record. Video files are created that can be dropped directly into your editing software's timeline.

Tape is still subject to the physical/mechanical limitations of the format and hardware that handles. So an hour of footage is going to take an hour to capture if you go this route.

There are some expensive products on the market that capture quicker than usual one is for the Sony DSR85 DVCAM. It is a hi-Speed Editing Recorder/Player, which can transfer 4 times. List is $19,700.00

There is an Hitachi with an on-board mini-DVD drive.  And Sony makes an outboard drive that will record 3 hours of DV and then the drive can be plugged into a computer via the firewire connection and the clips are directly available to the editing system.

Copying data from a portable drive would be significantly faster than the real time transfer using the mini dv player.

Take a look at Focus Enhancement?s Firestore product or Shining Technologies? CitiDisk recorder these two companies and products are on the leading edge of the technology.

Last update: 10:11 AM Wednesday, August 9, 2006