I have a client who needs this done. He said he would buy the camera for me in exchange I'd convert his tapes. I told him it would cost around $250 but I'm seeing that the SONY DCR-TRV480 is more expensive than that used for $300 and new $680! How can this be for such an old camera! I've seen people also recommend the TRV-340. Can anyone tell me if there is any quality differences or recommend a cheaper camcorder. Note I'm only going to be using it for converting 8mm to DVDs. I need to buy something as soon as possible.

If you're using it just to capture then quality is not an issue for a digital camcorder as long as it has the right output like firewire. The quality and info is all on the tape, the camcorder is just a pass through of the information. I have the Sony TRV-320 and it works well with Digital and Hi8mm. It sells on Amazon used for $249 so there's a dollar profit in it for you!

A neat side note of the TRV320 and maybe some other of these old timers is that they pass through Line 21 Closed Captioning as well. Something a lot of expensive professional decks do not do.

I'll have a look at that model

update: I just bought a new TRV320 on ebay for $200. thx so much for saving me money.