Price Paid:  $279.00 from HB Communications

Summary:
The EV-C200 is a great little deck if you're moving Hi8 and 8mm tapes over to other formats via analog outputs. The high-speed rewind is particularly nice since I usually don't want to sit and wait for a tape to chug back to the beginning before I pop it out, especially if I'm trying to capture video from multiple tapes. This is, however, a consumer deck, with everything that implies. It doesn't have digital or component outputs, the audio outputs are unbalanced, and there's no real "fine tuning" between frames like there is with a professional edit deck (there's also no jog/shuttle wheel). If you're looking to get rid of all of your old Hi8 and 8mm tapes this is a much better alternative than frying the remainder of your camcorder heads this is definately the solution for you. If you're looking to do professional video with this, consider a different deck (and, for that matter, a different format; Hi8 is, after all, a _consumer_ format). Not at all a bad solution for someone who likes to watch or dupe their home movies on a regular basis.

Strengths:
Nice, consumer-oriented format deck Relatively inexpensive S-Video outputs

Weaknesses:
Only has S-Video and composite outputs No balanced audio outputs No real jog/shuttle capabilities Quality limited by the tape format No RS-232 connections for editing

Similar Products Used:
Sony Hi8 camcorders (multiple) Canon L1A camcorder