capture HI8 tape analog vs digital

[avmaster]

i capture hi8 tapes from a sony camcorder with an analog capture card (av master) to a AVI file.
would i get a better quality output if i use a DV camera to play the HI8 tape and capture it with firewire in the HUF..
codec?

i hope you understand my question, i am a newbee

thanks for any reply

[av-freak]

I asume you mean Digital8, because DV is a different format.

I have tried to do this myself. I do not have a Hi8 camera anymore, just a Digital8, but I have a lot of old Hi8 tapes. The camera can convert the analog picture nicely to digital, but when I used the firewire cable no sound came over. I never had this trouble using a Digital8 tape so it must be the A/D conversion by the camera.

I have a Pinnacle DV500 capture card which has both analog and digital inputs. So I used the analog inputs for this matter.

I don't think it's that different if the A/D conversion is done by the camera or by the capture card. If it's Digital8 (or DV) then you should always use firewire.

So if the Digital8 player plays the tapes more clearly use that one, otherwise take the Hi8 player.

[Lamont Cranston]

I have a Sony TRV-120 Digital 8. I play my HI8 analog tapes and capture using the 1394 firewire. I get both the audio and video captured in a DV type 1 avi file(s). There are a number of advantages to this method. You eliminate any noise that may be introduced by the analog connections to your capture card. The codec (compression) is in the camera which eliminates that task from your computer processor and allow you to capture at DVD resolutions without dropping frames (from your cpu processor running out of gas). You can use many DV capture programs, like Ulead, which allow for seamless DV capture and will split the DV video into scenes. Lastly, the compression is significanlty higher and your capture files size is 4G (~18 minutes of video) on a fat 32. I may have missed some of the advantages but I am sure others will pont them out. In my opinion do it!