video duplicating/daisy-chained VCR's (1 Viewer)

[Dave Reichert]

For starters, I kind of have a side business where I make skills tapes for volleyball players in the area to help them get scholarships. Basically I shoot the footage with my Digital8 camcorder, zoom it over to a computer, tinker with it, and send it back to my camcorder. In the past I had just been making one copy at a time from my Sony DCR-TRV310 to my JVC 3800 SVHS VCR because the demand for tapes was low enough that I could make one a time. Yesterday I got a request for 15 tapes by tomorrow afternoon. At an hour a tape, I really don't have time for that. So I daisy-chained 3 VCR's together with composite cables to reduce copying time by 66%. I run an S-Video cable out of my camcorder into my SVHS VCR and the composite for the rest of the way.

Now my question is, is this the best/cheapest way I can pull off mass production? Also, if this little venture progresses further I may be doing this more often and won't be able to steal my parents' VCRs whenever I want to, so I'd be interested in picking up some el cheapo VCR's that still kick ass at recording in SP mode, I really could care less about playback as I have my 3800 to take care of that. Any suggestions? TIA

 

[Dave Poehlman]

Other than buying a bunch of VCRs, you could have someone duplicate it for you. This place gives free quotes:
http://www.musicolrecording.com/replications/

 

[Greg_Gibson]

You need to get a video amplifier if you daisy chain VCRs together. The video signal drops off with each machine you add into the mix so tapes further from the source will be of significantly lower quality.
Take a look at http://www.videouniversity.com. There is a free article there that describes a cheap duplication setup including a Radio Shack parts number for an video amp and a signal splitter.
If you can't find it, do a google search for "video duplication business".
Greg

 

[Greg_Gibson]

BTW, no VCR kicks ass recording in EP mode. I'm not sure why you would need that anyway if you're just putting together highlight tapes. If the running time on the highlights is more than 2 hours, I doubt a recruiter will look at it.

Greg

 

[Dave Reichert]

Whoops! I meant SP. Edited original post on the screw up.