Hi Rhonda, With my old Hi8 camcorder... and VCR... I plug them into my mini-DV camcorder and either dub them to digital mini-DV tapes to preserve whatever quality there is on the analog tapes and keep the mini-DV tapes in my digital video library... or use the mini-DV camcorder to do a 'pass-thru'... with no tape in the camcorder the analog...