I need to convert about 30 standard 8mm tapes to digital, so that I can edit them and archive them on DVD. Most of the 8mm tapes are 2 hours long. I'm assuming that most MiniDV tapes are 60 minutes long.

I have a Hi8 camcorder (Sony CCD-TRV108), a MiniDV camcorder (Canon ZR40), and cables (s-video, firewire). With this setup, I have 2 options for getting the standard 8mm tapes onto the computer:

OPTION A - Record to MiniDV
1) record from Hi8 camcorder to MiniDV camcorder via s-video [probably requires multiple MiniDV tapes]
2) capture from MiniDV to PC via firewire

OPTION B - Pass-through
1) play Hi8 camcorder through MiniDV (w/o recording) while capturing from MiniDV to PC via firewire

The first option seems slower and less convenient, since it requires me to wait until each MiniDV tape fills up, rewind the original 8mm tape a bit, record to the next MiniDV, etc. And then I have to wait during each digital capture. When I am finally, done capturing, I still need to splice together the captures to make sure the original 2 hours plays without interruption.

However, I read somewhere that the first option will usually result in fewer sync-related glitches. I guess this is because computers can get distracted by background processes and miss some frames, whereas a camcorder only has one task (to record input). That makes sense, at least in theory. However, I don't know if the difference is significant on my system, or if the advice is mostly for older computers (with a bunch of background processes).

So I am wondering:

For those of you who have tried both methods (record to minidv vs pass-through), did you notice a difference in quality one way or the other? Or were they the same?

Thanks!