I have no clue what I'm talking about here, so bear with me. I want to take footage from Hi8 tapes and put it on DVD. Eventually, I'd like to edit it, but for now, how would I capture it? The camera only has AV out jacks. Is there a device I could buy (not another camera) that would just play the tapes and would hook up via FireWire/USB and then I could somehow record it? (I searched before posting and found similar threads but didn't want to hijack).
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internal capture card or something like Canopus advc external
to capture and edit you need software, as Ulead videostudio (my favorite). -
Another option is to rent or buy a Digital8 camcorder. A Digital8 camcorder will play the Hi8 tape at 1X and realtime encode to DV format. It will playout the DV stream realtime to a IEEE-1394 connection to your computer where it can be recorded to the DV-AVI file.
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Pmonkey
I have a Hi8 camcorder and wanted to do exactly the same thing. I considered capture cards etc but opted for a Hard Disc Drive (HDD) DVD recorder (JVC DR-MH20 to be precise).
Why?
VHS is an old format with pretty poor quality in relation to DVD. I now record TV to my HDD to watch in broadcast quality at the highest setting (the HDD is 80gb which gives me 20 hours at highest quality and 250 hours at lowest). If I decide I want to keep it I transfer it to a DVD-R. If not I simply delete it. No more FF or rewind tapes. The unit also has great features like pause live TV etc.
The JVC has both AV and S-video inputs on the front. I simply hook the camera to the HDD and copy the footage across. I then record it to a DVD which I keep as the master copy before ripping the files on the DVD to my PC for editing and burning.
Using this option I upgraded to a far better, easier and superior TV recording set up as well as being able to transfer my Hi8 footage and continuing to use the camera I have (little lesser quality than a digi camcorder but I'm not planning on making a movie or anything so hey...who cares!)
There are a lot of HDD DVD recorder combo's out there, although I opted for the JVC after many ours of researching reviews etc. Would recommend the unit and it comes in at around £250
Another option for you. -
Thank you all for your responses:
lenti_75 - Could you reccommed an external capture card? I'd be doing this on a laptop. Also, would it be worth it to do this connected by USB? I have a computer with a firewire connection but would prefer to use another computer that just has USB.
edDV - I like the suggestion, and it'd probably work well, but before I try that, I'd like to see if there are any cheaper options (I checked prices and it looks like Digital8 camera's run around $300)
Rhyme Maker - I'd like to be able to edit, add chapters . . . so going straight from tape to HD to DVD isn't exactly what I was looking for. -
Understood.
Once I've transferred the footage to a DVD I then put the DVD into my PC, rip it and edit it, add chapters etc etc as you would capturing it through a firewire or USB cable so retain all the functionality whilst keeping a master copy of the actual footage just in case.
Whatever works for you though....enjoy! -
Originally Posted by ThePMonkey
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There are quite a few Hi8 to dvd topics. I just use a dvd recorder. Input to recorder, push record, presto! dvd.
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Originally Posted by thecoalman
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I've got a Digital8 camcorder, and am on the hunt for a decent 8mm or Hi8 VCR. I've found that the quality of analog 8mm playback in the Digital8 camcorders isn't that great, and the on-the-fly conversion to DV is lacking, too. I borrowed an old Sony EV-S1 recently, and it had a much better picture playing back my 8mm tapes than my Digital8 camcorder does.
I prefer to use a standalone DVD recorder to capture my home video tapes directly to MPEG2 video (DVD). Great results, and much simpler and faster than a computer card/software encoding solution. -
Since were on the topic of tape to DVD, I have a Digital8 camera and just finished capturing about 5 hours of DV from my vacation to my hard drive. I am now starting to edit things together using Ulead's VideoStudio 9 and have a question.
I just bought a dual layer lightscribe DVD burner (only reason I bought a new one was it was marked from $19.99, should of been 119.99). Anyway, I was to output file of my finished product, with full DVD quality and then burn them to DVD to watch on my HD TV but I also want to fit as much as I can on each DVD. What file type, quality, bitrate, etc should I produce to keep a terrific quality video and have a much as I can fit on 1 dual layer DVD?
Thanks in advance! -
I bought a Sony camcorder **340 just for this purpose, it has firewire/usb connection plays analog Hi8 also it has a feed through. You can input a VCR to it and capture on computer in any form you like. I messed with lots of programs they were fun but you need to go to so many and run into so many problems. If you want one solution shot that has everything go with Ulead products , there are a lot out there but Ulead had everything compatible with everything and would capture and control camcorder.
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Originally Posted by ThePMonkey
The trouble with MPEG2 is that it's not very editor friendly, you can get better results and avoid a lot of headaches by using AVI. On the other hand it does require that extra step of converting it. Again if you think you may only want to do a little trimming etc and not be adjusting the brightness, contrast, adding filters etc. then mpeg2 capture is probably a better choice. That would be particularly true if you have a large collection of tapes you want to capture. -
Originally Posted by sjohans1
First use IEEE-1394 and "capture" to DV format in your editing program. Edit in DV format and then encode at full 8Mb/s (with PCM audio) to 8.5Mb/s (with AC-3 audio) at CBR (constant bit rate). This will get you about an hour per DVD.
Compare your DVD playback to the original camcorder playback. If you aren't happy with the quality, get a better encoder. -
Originally Posted by sjohans1
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