Customer Reviews

Sony GV-D200 Digital 8mm Portable Video Recorder

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you are like me and have tons of old 8mm (or Hi8) tapes lying around, this 8mm Walkman is perfect. I upgraded to MiniDV but forgot to transfer my old 8mm tapes before giving my Canon 8mm camcorder away, so with this I'm not stuck with useless tapes. It plays back regular 8mm, Hi8, and also Sony's Digital8 formats. You can hook it up to a VCR or TV, and even to a DV-savvy PC. I capture my 8mm videos to my Fujitsu LifeBook C2210 laptop, using Windows Movie Maker 2 (download for free on Microsoft's website). I'm now about 40% done with transfering my old tapes, but I also enjoy hooking this up to my TV and playing back old tapes and re-living old memories. Ah, how time just flies...

I am in the middle of a project to get all my many "old" Regular 8 and Hi-8 recordings onto hard drives and thence onto DVD's. In the midst of all this old my Sony CVD-1000 died on me, and I have, over the years, spent too much on repairs for it. This led me to the Digital 8mm Walkman. I have NOT used it, and will not use it, for RECORDING (I do not record in Digital 8 format). But for playback it is superb. I am very pleased with what it does. very. I suspect that some of my satisfaction comes from the Sony introduction of video-processing circuitry, which evidently cleans up the images remarkably. However, there is a price: some of my "pans" now involve a degree of blurring, which I do not think are present when played "unprocessed". But I have decided I am more than willing to accept this negative in face of the excellent video I am now capturing. So my five stars are based SOLELY on playback. One can cut out the video processing if one wishes; it is quite easy. Incidentally, the small size of this unit is a welcome plus; my workbench is already quite crowded with equipment, and I appreciate the Walkman's very small footprint greatly!

This device has at least prosumer level recording and playback capabilities. I hooked it up to my 3CCD camera and the results were extremely satisfying when using the Digital 8 mode. It hooks right up to the computer with the 1394 connect and I can extract capture points, fast forward, rewind etc. by clicking the mouse. It supports 625 Horizontal lines of resolution which exceeds my hi-end camera and I can not express enough the clarity of the image. No specks of colored snow or artifacts dancing in the dark areas of the image as I previously had with my pro level SVHS recorder, only crisp, smooth, detailed image rendering. The sound quality is also excellent. For what I wanted it for,, it is better than perfect and for what I will also use it for it is a blessed device.. I highly recommend this recorder/player to anyone needing portability, quality, and professional results for mastering to video tape and of coarse for playback.. The only thing that scares me about this device is how light and small it is,, but at the same time, it's exactly what I need. Hope this info helps someone out there in deciding. Peace..

Of the many reasons one might purchase this item, I bought it for just one. To transfer my Hi8 & 8mm home video to a hard drive before my tapes deteriorated any more. With its built in Time Base Corrector ( TBC ) and Digital Noise Reduction ( DNR ) I was able to output a DV signal "FROM THE DECK" and get ( in my opinion ) the highest quality transfer available.
There are other options available to do these transfers. One is to buy a Digital 8 camcorder that will output your analog tapes to DV. However, I'm not aware of any of these cameras being built anymore so you would need to buy a used camera. Many people go this route with excellent results. It certainly is a cheaper option than buying the Sony deck but you are buying a used product and can't be sure of it's condition. I bought the more expensive NEW deck choosing to pay for peace of mind. Either way you go you can sell your transfer deck or camcorder once you've finished your project and recoup some of the original expense. Another route is a transfer service which has the potential to be very expensive. My research into this tells me most services would not be using equipment of any higher quality than the Sony or even the camcorder option. Those few that do use hi end transfer decks are using older machines since they haven't built new ones for some time now. Even if they are well maintained and up to spec they will be outputting an analog signal before going through an Analog to Digital converter. I'm not sure quality wise they could do any better than the Sony and again it could be quite expensive.
If there was a down side to the Sony it would be you can not view the menu from your computer. You must use an extra monitor for that. I did not find this a big deal. Also, it seems every time you put in a new tape you have to turn off the deck for about 5 seconds for the computer to recognize it. Again, once you figure it out it's not a big deal. Other than that it was real easy to use. I spent a lot of time researching this. I transferred almost 1 terabyte worth of video. I was very happy with the deck. Some of these tapes were 20 years old and although some gave me trouble I was able to transfer every bit of footage. I did purchase a Sony dry type head cleaner and used it. About $30.00. I hope my research and review helps someone out there. Thanks, Steve.

May be the last of its type to play both analog 8 and digital 8. Have been told Sony's newer digital8 camcorders are not backward compatible! Only drawback to this item (our business now has 4 of them) is that as they age, the circuit boards start to give the wrong instructions, i.e., our oldest model will often go into record mode when hitting "play." Suggest you always close record tab (why did Sony reverse the record tab procedure that other tape formats use????) before hitting play and the problem will not occur. This has been a vital item for our video transfer business, but not necessarily an item the average consumer needs.

I know DV and Mini Dv is now the "standard" however I find it hard to tell the difference between the D8 footage and DV. Image is crisp and clear. The sound quality excellent. I would recommend. If you want to keep your presnet cam but want the quality of the digital image this is the way to go. I highly recommend. Also it eases using your cam for playback so less wear and tear on your cam.

I got this 8mm Video Walkman to play my old 8MM tapes when my 14 year-old Sony Camcorder finally stopped playing back with good quality. The Video Walkman VCR is very nice, and is a quality product. It plays the old Video 8 tapes very well, and allowed me to do video capture of my legacy tape collection. Sound and picture quality are excellent. It's just too bad they didn't have a less expensive unit, as I really don't intend to use if for digital tape recording. I only needed it to play back my old video 8 tapes. If you need to rescue an old tape collection because your old camcorder is no longer working - this unit will do the job nicely. However be prepared to pay a premium for the priviledge.

When your old 8mm, Hi8, or Digital 8 camera dies and you're wondering what you can do for playback, this is the machine for you. Small, sophisticated, and backwards compatible to all the 8mm tape formats, this machine is a little wonder.

I'm surprised at how easy it is to convert my old Hi8 tapes to AVI and DVD. I figured I would have to use my rather complex editing software to do this project--but when I plugged my Sony GV-D200 into my Windows Vista PC, my computer immediately recognized it and asked me if I wanted to import the entire tape to the hard drive... ...Well, yeah!

Then it asked me if I wanted to burn the tape to a DVD when it was done digitizing it. Again...well, yeah! Vista's DVD Maker even created a menu with "scenes" for the DVD--all without me lifting a finger. My project couldn't have been easier. I imagine Windows 7 does the same thing.

The digitized video that I captured from playing my tapes on this unit is beautiful. Worth every penny.

Buy this product through Amazon & get the lowest price then enjoy it. I'm using it as an editor. It has outstanding features & quality. I'm thinking of purchasing the DV Walkman as well to save my camera from double duty but will wait for the price to come down. You won't be dis-satisfied with these products.

I purchased this item in November 2010 and over a period of a year of so used it to digitize our old Hi8 family videos. The tapes were > 10 years old and I was concerned that soon they would start to degrade so wanted to "back them up" to a digital format. After purchasing an iLink-to-firewire cable, I connected this to our Mac mini and it worked seamlessly with the iMovie application. I also purchased a 1 TB external hard drive (each Hi8 2hr video digitizes into about a 25 GB file using default settings) to hold the videos.

Digitized image quality and sound was better than expected. Now that the videos are in iMovie format, I plan to eventually edit them when I can find some time.