Digital Hi8 tape to DVD

[DvDguy04]

Hello All,

Please advise, I have a couple Hi8 tapes that was recorded on the SONY Digtial-8 Handy Cam. Its has an AVI output cable that can connect to the USB port.

1. Do I need to use the capture card to convert to DVD? or
1. Can I convert those tapes into Video DVD via AVI cable.
2. What the best software for the conversion?
3. What is picture quality after the conversion.
4. Am I able to combine tapes into 1 DVD, is size is permitted

Your help is greatly appreicated.

[msb-mike]

My Sony Cam came with a Sonic Recording software disk, I've used Sonic for all my Cam to DVD recording without any problems. The picture quality is slightly reduced during conversion. Sonic will allow you to combine one or more tapes, provided there is room.

[ropdoh]

Here is what I've done in the past. Your camera should have a Firewire (IEEE 1394) in/output socket. So get a firewire card for your computer if you don't have one, and plug your camera into the firewire card.

You can then "capture" the video to an AVI file. Actually, the video is copied across so there is no loss of quality whatsoever. Software to do this includes: DVApp (part of directx sdk), WinDV, Scenalyzer (and others I am sure)

Once you have the AVI files on your computer, you can use any DVD authoring software to create the DVDs, you'll also be able to specify the bitrate so that you can get multiple tapes onto one DVD, but obviously the more footage on one DVD, the lower the final quality will be.

Try to avoid the USB cable, that will give you low quality video. Firewire is the way forward...

Hope that helps

[DvDguy04]

msb-mike and ropdoh,

Thank you both for your advises. Yes, the camcorder has the firewire in/out put sockets. I'm going to buy the Firewire Card and the Firewire cable. Ropdoh, any particular brand you recommend for the Card and Cable?

Thanks again,

[canadateck]

msb-mike and ropdoh,

Thank you both for your advises. Yes, the camcorder has the firewire in/out put sockets. I'm going to buy the Firewire Card and the Firewire cable. Ropdoh, any particular brand you recommend for the Card and Cable?

Thanks again,

It seems many people including myself,find that the 50$ Firewire cards are as good as the 12$ cards. I would guess the same on the cable,I use no name brand.

[ZAPPER]

I got to agree about the cards as far as quality goes. It is either going to work or it isn't, not much room for anything in between. I bought a cheap three hole card at Compusa a few years ago and the only thing that I regret is that for five bucks more or so I could have gotten some better software bundled with it. Not that the software that comes with a firewire card is state of the art, but I would have liked to try it just the same.

[msb-mike]

ropdoh had a good point that there will be no loss of video quality when capturing the video from cam to comp, but there will be a loss when transfering to DVD. As far as firewire go, I couldn't agree more for editing and/or transfering.

[lordsmurf]

This is CAPTURING, not authoring... Moved...

[handyguy]

I use a Panasonic dvd recorder s-video input to capture from Hi8 analog & it looks just like the original. Real easy to do. More capture info:
https://www.videohelp.com/capture