EMERGENCY HELP. 8mm tapes deteriorated!

[zgrm100]

Guys please help. I finally wanted to get a dvd-recorder to put my 8mm tpes from my camcorder on DVD and they all look like shit! All of my burthdays from 10 years ago! The image is flickering like crazy. There are sever white lines at the top of the image (like when there is no tracking in the VCR and half the image is on top and half on bottom) that type of lines. And the whole image is very flickery!

Is there anything that I can do? If not me do you think professionals will be able to do this. I mean I would honestly pay any amount if they can fix it back to normal because it is so important to me. I never knew that this could happen so fast. Please guys help me out.

[thecoalman]

How does it play from cam to TV?

[BrainStorm69]

Is there anything that I can do? If not me do you think professionals will be able to do this. I mean I would honestly pay any amount if they can fix it back to normal because it is so important to me. I never knew that this could happen so fast. Please guys help me out.

Talk to lordsmurf, I believe he does that kind of work for a fee. Just don't tell him the "I would honestly pay any amount" part.

[handyguy]

Did you just try to adjust the tracking? Thats all that you have to do most of the time.

[mazinz]

most 8mm/hi-8 camcorders do not have a tracking control on them. If worse comes to worse you could always mess with the heads inside and try to adjust the pic that way.

of course have you tried a cleaning tape, it could be dirty.

[Noahtuck]

Talk to lordsmurf, I believe he does that kind of work for a fee. Just don't tell him the "I would honestly pay any amount" part.

Or the heads in the camcorder ?? have you tried recording anything on it lately to see how it looks ?? might just be the camcorder....
I used to have an 8mm years ago and had a standalone 8mm vcr also, don't know if you can buy them anymore, it's been awhile since i had one.

[johns0]

Sounds like the the tape guides have come loose,you will have to take apart the case and use a tiny screwdriver or allen wrench and realign the guides and then tighten them again.

[presto]

Before you risk making things worse do some trouble-shooting to isolate the problem. Find a device that works and a tape that works in that player. Try one of your tapes in the good player and try the good tape in your player.

(But first take your device somewhere and have the heads cleaned. That's the easiest and most likely problem. You can try a head cleaning tape but if it doesn't fix the problem you won't have learned anything because you don't know it did a good enough job.)

[zgrm100]

thanks guys. So you think its not the tape? I didnt really understand what some1 above meant by screwing around with the tape...

I think im gonna try to take my friends camera and see if that helps. I hope its not the tape because my friend has 10 year old VHS tape from his VHS camcorder and everything is fine. Or is it tht 8mm tapes can mess up faster or osmething?

[thecoalman]

thanks guys. So you think its not the tape? I didnt really understand what some1 above meant by screwing around with the tape...

I think im gonna try to take my friends camera and see if that helps. I hope its not the tape because my friend has 10 year old VHS tape from his VHS camcorder and everything is fine. Or is it tht 8mm tapes can mess up faster or osmething?

Does it still look like crap when you play it directly from your cam to TV? The reason I ask is this, what you describe above is identical to what a tape captured on a ATI card looks like if the Macrovision kicks in. That may or may not be your problem, the best way to find out is simply play it on a direct cam to TV connection. If the problem goes away that is probably what your seeing.

I have a rticle here: www.nepadigital.com/mv

10 years old is not that old for for tape.

[offline]

- edit -

Thought it was about 8mm film

[hech54]

Doesn't sound like a tape problem.

[gshelley61]

It's doubtful that your 8mm videotapes are bad. More likely is the camcorder needs cleaning and/or alignment... or your DVD recorder is having trouble with the signal (like a false MV trigger as thecoalman mentioned). See if you can borrow someone else's 8mm camcorder, preferably a newer one in good shape, and see how the tapes look on that machine.

[zgrm100]

wow you guys are just awesome! You were right it is the camcorder. I tried it in a shop that does the transfers and it looked perfect! So i decided to do the transfering myself now. But do you have any ideas on how I can fix my camera? Is it broken. Its an old but expensive at the time Canon A-1 Digital. Any1 have a clue on what could be wrong and whether or not I Will be able to fix it?

[thecoalman]

Have you tried as I suggested and play it from the cam to TV, may not be anything wrong with your cam either.

[zgrm100]

yea thts hwio I have been playing it. Cam to TV...

[thecoalman]

yea thts hwio I have been playing it. Cam to TV...

Just wanted to make sure that you tried that before you went and tried fixing something that wasn't broke.

[Sillyname]

wow you guys are just awesome! You were right it is the camcorder. I tried it in a shop that does the transfers and it looked perfect! So i decided to do the transfering myself now. But do you have any ideas on how I can fix my camera? Is it broken. Its an old but expensive at the time Canon A-1 Digital. Any1 have a clue on what could be wrong and whether or not I Will be able to fix it?

Try a head cleaner tape. Preferrably wet type. Dry don't do much.

[handyguy]

Just get another one from ebay. I saw a Nikon 8mm one there that worked great once, went for $44.

[zgrm100]

thanks everyone again. A friend let me use his camcorder so that I can use it as a source and burn it on DVD. I just bought a sony Stand-alone DVD recorder and then I plan to edit the file on my PC. Is that a good idea? I remember reading that it could be problematic to edit mpeg-2 on the pc. What do you think?

Also the camera only has on channell audio output so I can only put in either the left or right channell. I got a Y-Adapter so i will be able to put both of them in however the sound will be mono. Any1 know whether this is acceptable or not? Thanks again.

By the way the sony recorder I bought is the RDR-GX300, any1 know whether or not this is a good model? Thanks.

[thecoalman]

thanks everyone again. A friend let me use his camcorder so that I can use it as a source and burn it on DVD. I just bought a sony Stand-alone DVD recorder and then I plan to edit the file on my PC. Is that a good idea? I remember reading that it could be problematic to edit mpeg-2 on the pc. What do you think?

Your better off with AVI, trimming shouldn't be an issue just where you add transitions and such.

Also the camera only has on channell audio output so I can only put in either the left or right channell. I got a Y-Adapter so i will be able to put both of them in however the sound will be mono. Any1 know whether this is acceptable or not? Thanks again.

That should work fine.

By the way the sony recorder I bought is the RDR-GX300, any1 know whether or not this is a good model? Thanks.

No idea.

[presto]

I remember reading that it could be problematic to edit mpeg-2 on the pc. What do you think?

There is really no problem editing mpeg-2 on the pc unless you are planning to do pretty fancy stuff. I think it really depends on how much hard drive space you have and what software you use. I won't argue with anyone who says that avi is best for editing but I will say that mpg editing has come a long way and the distinction is getting less and less obvious. AVI to DVD will take many many hours where mpg to DVD might be done in one hour.

As for the audio issue, I doubt very much that your birthday videos are in stereo any way.

[thecoalman]

AVI to DVD will take many many hours where mpg to DVD might be done in one hour.

As for the audio issue, I doubt very much that your birthday videos are in stereo any way.

Depends on your system and what your using. With my setup I can do a basic AVI to MPG in aprox. real time providing there's no filters etc. If the cam you used to tape has stereo recording it will be recorded in stereo but you won't notice much difference by capturing in mono.

[presto]

With my setup I can do a basic AVI to MPG in aprox. real time

How long does it take you to compile one hour of avi to mpg?

[thecoalman]

With my setup I can do a basic AVI to MPG in aprox. real time

How long does it take you to compile one hour of avi to mpg?

As I said Real time, 1 hour of AVI takes 1 hour. Thats for 720x480 NTSC single pass 6000 VBR. If there's a lot of transitions it takes a little longer, add some filters a little longer..... I never turn anything off so most of XP's services, virus, firewall is running too, I could probably speed it up a little if I disabled them.

Horsepower makes a huge difference.... There's even a huge gap between say a 2.4 which from what I've read takes about 2 hours for 1 hour of video.

[BobK]

> I got a Y-Adapter so i will be able to put both of them in however the sound will be mono. Any1 know whether this is acceptable or not?

A Y-Adapter will work fine. The sound is already mono so you won't be changing it, both channels will just be exactly the same.

[presto]

> I got a Y-Adapter so i will be able to put both of them in however the sound will be mono. Any1 know whether this is acceptable or not?

A Y-Adapter will work fine. The sound is already mono so you won't be changing it, both channels will just be exactly the same

Does any one know, in this situation, is it preferable to use the Y or just take the left (or right) channel? Does adding them togethor double the volume? Does it introduce noise?

(Also, Coalman, the reason I asked is because I thought you were saying the entire process could be done in real time and that seemed unlikely. I understand now that you were only talking about compiling)

[thecoalman]

(Also, Coalman, the reason I asked is because I thought you were saying the entire process could be done in real time and that seemed unlikely. I understand now that you were only talking about compiling)

I dunno, don't have any software that will. That would defeat the purpose of capping in AVI anyway. Wish it would attempt to edit in real time, it looks like it almost will but it renders it first in a small preview then gives you the large preview... I can render small portions at a time such as where my tansitions are that would be anice feature id it was possible.

[BobK]

> Does any one know, in this situation, is it preferable to use the Y or just take the left (or right) channel? Does adding them togethor double the volume? Does it introduce noise?

It's generally preferable to use the Y cord. If you just input to the left channel (or right) then you'll only get sound out of one speaker when you play it back on a stereo system (TV, computer).

I don't know if adding them together doubles the volume but I nevered noticed any difference.

And I can't see any reason it would introduce noise.

[presto]

Oh, I read his post wrong. I thought he was going from a stereo camcorder into a mono device for some reason. You are right that you would want to use the Y when going from mono to stereo.