We use some other Pinnacle Dongle at work to rip home movie VHS tapes, I guess it’s okay, the whole idea of directly taking video from one source to another without any real capture or clean up is just asking for trouble imho.

as for your other questions, I dont think one of us understands this little device, most likely me: doesn’t it just take an analog video source and convert it to a digital one? So are you asking if you can use your Hi-8 cam for a webcam? Like I said I dont think im fully grasping the concept here. lol