Hi,

I have a bunch of Hi8 analog tapes that I'm trying to convert to the DV format. My plan was to do A to D conversion and also continue to produce analog tapes until I could afford a true DV camcorder.

My experience with the Dazzle Hollywood DV Bridge was mixed. While the A-D conversion produced great colors and synchronization, it had some problems:
- intermittently produced "pixelized sound" - unintelligible, digitized garble - on a scene by scene basis. It didn't just start in the middle of a scene, it started at the beginning of a scene and continued until that scene was over. The next scene might be perfect.
- just before a scene changes, the last frame of that scene would freeze and sound can be heard from the next scene. Then the second scene's video would begin and you could see what was being heard with the frozen last frame of the previous scene.
- the last two or so lines of the converted video looks like a refracted reflection of the picture just above it.
- some dropped frames.

My system is powerful and I have a defragged 7200 RPM, WD 120GB drive on a dedicated I/O channel for writing the converted files. All non-essential tasks/screen savers, etc. were shut down.

Perhaps I should get out of the analog world and go to digital. Does anyone have any experience with Sony's DIGITAL-8 camcorders that will also play ANALOG Hi-8 tapes?