CompuServe Thread

Tom, I use both. The Vdeck is a great machine I used to think it was nearly frame accurate. You can count on +/- 2 frames with it. It often is better than that. On rare occasions it will be up to four frames off. This happens rarely and I suspect it is some type of tape error. When it is off that much at a particular location it is always off by the same amount at that particular location. Having never used any hi-end decks I cannot comment on a comparison. Price is very competitive though I think. $1400 mail order. I use a Sony TR101 and the match is great. With the TR101's great stabilization feature, I was able to shoot some pretty decent scenes for a training video while on an offshore crew boat. Using the RC time code feature of the V-decks I am able to do some good video editing. I even have done narration to a Hi-8 tape with time code and then pick only the good narrative takes using the TC feature and transfer it to VHS. The PCM audio feature of the Hi-8 is a good feature too. With a mixer you can get Hi-fi sound and narration onto your second generation edit with the Audio dub feature. The V-box can be used with any Control-L deck. I use it with my Sony S-VHS R5UC. One of the downsides of the V-deck is the lack of manual controls for many of the features. The only manual controls on the deck and remote are for the standard fare plus audio dub and time code dub. This irritates me that you have to fire up a software controller to either play slo motion, x2 speed or frame advances. The V-decks are also very small (like everything else in the 8mm world) and it makes them fairly portable. Be talkin to you, Rocky