DSR-11 Recorder to transfer my tapes or huffyuv for the manual mode?

[CCEncoder]

Some guy on another galaxy said:
My recommendation is to take your VHS and Hi-8 tapes and transfer them through a Time-Base Corrector (such as the DataVideo TBC-1000) onto DV tape, using the DVCAM format on your Sony DSR-11 recorder. The Time-Base Corrector cleans up problems with your VHS video, such as chroma smear, drop-outs, tearing and other bad things.

Now I seem that these devices are very expensive. Which may compensate the effort and time. But I just realized another idea... If I just record these tapes and hi8 cassettes onto my computer using huffyuv and then I convert them to DV-CAM format would it be the same thing but more cheaper? and also get rid of the click and jerky noises my ADVC-110 produce on the DV when the tape has audio track issues? :roll:

[JohnnyMalaria]

The DSR-11 is just a DV recorder that supports DVCAM. DVCAM is just like DV except the tape runs faster and the audio is "locked". So you can use an miniDV camcorder instead of the DSR-11.

If your analog material is jittery, you need the time-base corrector. This must be done on the native, analog video signal. Once you capture it using a cheap capture card to huffyuv, you throw away all the timing signals present in the analog signal.

But haven't you bought an high-end S-VHS deck recently? I though it had a TBC.

I'm also a bit confused about your goal. If you do capture to huffyuv and convert to DVCAM (which really means DV), what you do plan to do with the DV format material?

[CCEncoder]

Store it.... It'll be better then to store it as HUFFYUV or DVD as on the first it will occupy a lot of space and DVD wont' preserve much of the original quality due to the encoding done... If it fails I'll have to store it as HUFFYUV or maybe keep the tape until I find something more convenient.

So DV and DVCAM have 4:1:1 sampling ratio only DVCPRO50 has 4:2:2 so is there a way I can use that format coming from huffyuv? By the way what sampling ratio huffyuv has? is sampling ratio all that is required for video quality? what also affects it?

[JohnnyMalaria]

DVCPro50 is overkill for Hi8 material (unless it was recorded on professional equipment - DV exceeds consumer Hi8 quality) plus you need a DVCPro50 codec and editing/multimedia software that supports it.

For Hi8 material, I would convert it to DV with a passthrough camcorder or, for storing, just record onto miniDV tape. Forget the computer/capture side of things.

I can't answer your huffyuv questions since I don't use it....