Saving Your Edited Footage Back to Tape in the Camcorder

Having copied your analog video footage into the digital domain, it's always a good idea to keep a master copy of sequences that have been polished and edited in the computer. This can be achieved in two ways. To start with, you could simply copy the finished projects from the computer back to the tape in the camcorder using the same connection you used to capture it in the first place-FireWire.

Outside Europe, almost all DV and Digital8 camcorders possess a two-way FireWire socket designed not only to provide a digital video output but also to accept incoming signals for re-recording to tape in the camcorder. This so-called "DV-in" utility (that can also now be found on an increasing number of European models) is very useful because it means that you can archive edited projects back to tape with no perceptible loss in visual or sound quality. Having archived your edited project masters back to digital tape, it's very convenient to place the tape back onto the shelf, clear the computer's hard disk of all the many project files, and get on with the next job. At any future stage you can then re-import the edited project (rather than the original tapes) with no quality loss and compile a DVD or export to a Web- or e-mail-ready format as is suited to your needs.

In order to make use of this handy feature, your camcorder must be equipped with a DV input capability, so check your user manual first. Alternatively, if you haven't yet purchased a camcorder, it's something that you might consider asking your retailer about.

FireWire is a standard feature of digital tape-based camcorders, such as MiniDV (or one of the professional-quality formats based on DV, like DVCAM or HDV) and Digitals, that record a DV-standard signal to Video8 and Hi8mm videocassettes. If you use a DVD camcorder, HDD (Hard Disk Drive), or SD card camera, you won't necessarily need to save back to the camcorder at all. The files they produce are smaller than those captured from DV and are consistent with DVD disk recordings in that they are saved using the same MPEG2 compression system. In such cases, all you need to do is to retain the edited project on disk as usual. Some people actually purchase a separate hard disk drive for the purpose of archiving their finished projects where they can all be accessed in one place.

All applications that can capture and edit DV and Digitals tape footage will allow you to re-record the finished project back to tape in the camcorder using DV-in. It's something that's as easy to achieve as it was to transfer it from the device in the first place. Where confusion can arise is in the fact that the camcorder should be placed in the "Play" or "VCR" mode; this will usually result in the camcorder displaying "DV in" in the viewfinder or LCD, letting you know that it's capable of accepting an external recording. Having done so, insert a blank cassette (it's probably a good idea to retain your original recordings) and follow the "Export to Tape" prompts in your editing program.