Here is the deal, I just shot a pretend PSA to promote a movie I am working on. My goal is to make it as "hoaky" as possible, I have already set my timeline up so that it looks like I did all the editing in camera along with some cheesy transitions like star wipe and what not. I plan to make some horrible looking text but was wondering if it was possible to create a real video look as if it was shot on a home camera in the 80's or 90's. Perhaps the same effect used when created that new snoop dogg video or some of the Borat skits that were aired on the Ali G show.

Also I have access to almost every kind of Sony deck from Betacam to HDcam. I was hoping that if I sent the signal to a digibeta and then did a terrible dub of it into a beta SP deck if it would give the desired effect.

Check out nattress.com specifically the film effects. You can flatten the colors, try "Brother Preset" as a starting point and back off the colors from there. Or if your tight on a budget go for "Sepia Filter" change the color to blue and back off the highlight and threshold. Almost as if you didn't have the best white balance. Add a slight echo on the audio to simulate onboard camera mic... sounds like a fun project.

Ya I recorded some stuff with a lav mic and some with the internal and I have the Nattress plug ins so I may use those. I think the best way to describe what I want is to say that it should look like vasoline was smeared on the lenses.

Here is a link to the video without corrected audio. The iris was usually all the way open to create a softer image.
http://jambrill.com/RECALL/%2004_13_08%20PSA.mov

Much of the look would require the right kind of camera. DVi was actually a key resource in achieving the look of that Snoop Dogg video! See this thread:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=108961&highlight=snoop+dogg