Major decision - what format camcorder to buy - help

[alexcomp]

I am currently able to convert my library of 8mm Handycam tapes to disk using the analog input that came with my ATI Radeon video card. As I am quite new to this technology, (but not to computers), I'm not sure that I'm asking the right questions but here is my concern.

I would prefer not to go through the rather substantial effort of converting my analog tapes to disk with the ATI card if there is something available that will give me better quality. This is led me to consider the purchase of a digital 8 camcorder with FireWire input on the theory that its capability to read my legacy tapes, convert to digital, then send to the computer via FireWire will result in a higher quality file than would be doable via the analog transfer. Currently, I have under consideration the Sony TRV730 or 830.

Will the quality of my conversion be markedly superior using the digital camcorder?
Am I making a camera format mistake by trying to provide for this better quality conversion using the digital 8 format? In other words, should I take the 6 to $800 I would be spending on this format camera and choose a pure digital video format? After all, I do have the capability of transposing my analog tapes and if the quality would not be markedly improved, perhaps I should opt for a pure digital video approach. However, I should indicate that some of these tapes that I wish to transpose are essentially priceless family memorabilia and I would like to do it as well as possible.

Perhaps there is even another approach which would be a pure digital video camera and a better quality analog conversion card. The final portion of this decision matrix is that I will need a digital FireWire conversion card and perhaps some of them may be coupled with an analog conversion capability that would be superior to the ATI video card.

Thank you in advance for input to this multifaceted decision-making opportunity that I am facing..

[deltaboy]

dudeman! go buy a miniDV camera. its digitized in the camera and you can transfer it via firewire without any new recompression. need a big HD tho. i got my panasonic DV101K for $700 CAD and a firewire for $40.

PURE DIGITAL IS THE WAT TO GO!!!

[norm]

The big question is whether you really want to update the camera you currently have.
If not and you don't think the ATI card is good enough then get a good quality analog capture card.
If updating the camera is in your plans then a DV camera is not much good to you. You might as well buy a Digital 8 so you can use your old tapes in it.
You can then please yourself whether to capture the info on analog or digital which will depend what capture card or interface you buy. It really depends on how much editing of your footage and whether you are going to write the info to CD or DVD or back to a video tape - you need to make that decision before buying a capture card
Cheers ..

[wfink]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-09-29 16:00:38, alexcomp wrote:
I am currently able to convert my library of 8mm Handycam tapes to disk using the analog input that came with my ATI Radeon video card. As I am quite new to this technology, (but not to computers), I'm not sure that I'm asking the right questions but here is my concern.

I would prefer not to go through the rather substantial effort of converting my analog tapes to disk with the ATI card if there is something available that will give me better quality. This is led me to consider the purchase of a digital 8 camcorder with FireWire input on the theory that its capability to read my legacy tapes, convert to digital, then send to the computer via FireWire will result in a higher quality file than would be doable via the analog transfer. Currently, I have under consideration the Sony TRV730 or 830.

Will the quality of my conversion be markedly superior using the digital camcorder?
Am I making a camera format mistake by trying to provide for this better quality conversion using the digital 8 format? In other words, should I take the 6 to $800 I would be spending on this format camera and choose a pure digital video format? After all, I do have the capability of transposing my analog tapes and if the quality would not be markedly improved, perhaps I should opt for a pure digital video approach. However, I should indicate that some of these tapes that I wish to transpose are essentially priceless family memorabilia and I would like to do it as well as possible.

Perhaps there is even another approach which would be a pure digital video camera and a better quality analog conversion card. The final portion of this decision matrix is that I will need a digital FireWire conversion card and perhaps some of them may be coupled with an analog conversion capability that would be superior to the ATI video card.

Thank you in advance for input to this multifaceted decision-making opportunity that I am facing..

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[wfink]

'I was faced with the same question many months ago and I have no regrets for what I decided.
One observation for what I propose: the more analog cassettes you have for transfer, the more advantages I see to go for D8.
Go for Digital8 (and decide later if you buy in addition a Mini DV -smaller- camera) It allows you to load your 8mm cassettes directly, go out thru Firewire and into a DV capture card - I use the Studio DV from Pinnacle - cost me $99.- with a powerful editing and conversion application.
The picture quality is great - and better than going thru my analog ATI capture card.
I have seen other advantages when looking at the D8 camera you have in mind buying (I have a 330) - you really 'see' the 500 lines of resolution (no less than Mini-DV, but much cheaper), on a 120 min Hi8 casssette (again lower in price than Mini DV) you can put 60 or 120 minutes of film (not only 60 min as with DV) and the camera has the Memory Stick feature included, which holds Still Photos (64MB hold 320 photos - you will never have to carry a laptop around for transfers or run out of storage space). You will rapidly see the advantage of carrying only one camera instead of 2. The still photo resolution is 640x480, but I have difficulties to tell them apart from megapixel photos.
Wrapping the advantages up: with D8 you go directly from your analog tape to digital and into the PC, without any drawbacks vs DV.
Regards Wolf

On 2001-09-29 16:00:38, alexcomp wrote:
I am currently able to convert my library of 8mm Handycam tapes to disk using the analog input that came with my ATI Radeon video card. As I am quite new to this technology, (but not to computers), I'm not sure that I'm asking the right questions but here is my concern.

I would prefer not to go through the rather substantial effort of converting my analog tapes to disk with the ATI card if there is something available that will give me better quality. This is led me to consider the purchase of a digital 8 camcorder with FireWire input on the theory that its capability to read my legacy tapes, convert to digital, then send to the computer via FireWire will result in a higher quality file than would be doable via the analog transfer. Currently, I have under consideration the Sony TRV730 or 830.

Will the quality of my conversion be markedly superior using the digital camcorder?
Am I making a camera format mistake by trying to provide for this better quality conversion using the digital 8 format? In other words, should I take the 6 to $800 I would be spending on this format camera and choose a pure digital video format? After all, I do have the capability of transposing my analog tapes and if the quality would not be markedly improved, perhaps I should opt for a pure digital video approach. However, I should indicate that some of these tapes that I wish to transpose are essentially priceless family memorabilia and I would like to do it as well as possible.

Perhaps there is even another approach which would be a pure digital video camera and a better quality analog conversion card. The final portion of this decision matrix is that I will need a digital FireWire conversion card and perhaps some of them may be coupled with an analog conversion capability that would be superior to the ATI video card.

Thank you in advance for input to this multifaceted decision-making opportunity that I am facing..

[/quote]

[TOMMO]

I too had to make the decision , I wanted to increase the quality of my VCDs and even move up to SVCD. I was never happy with the quality of SVCD when using HI8.

I bought a Sony TVR120 (Digital for £349 and a £49 Pyro Firewire card and it is superb. The difference is very obvious to see.

Editing the footage - seems like Ulead Media Studio Pro 6 is winning at the moment.

[alexcomp]

Two votes in favor of the D8 solution. Sounds good as that was my leaning. One question was never directly answered - would I get better quality digital at around the same $ if I disregarded the advantage of the analog transfer and went straight to DV?

[jaw2957]

To answer that last question, yes and no. Digital 8 and dv are the same exact formats, so there would be no quality difference. The only quality issues would come with the tapes. Hi 8 tapes aren't as reusable as dv tapes, so if you are using old hi 8 tapes, then yes mini dv would be better. If you got new tapes then go with the digital 8, since you have clear advantages with it, unless you don't want to have an upgrade in the future.

[TOMMO]

I too was concerned that miniDV would be superior to Dig8. Certainly most shops indicated there was a quality difference. Research proved that it was the same quality, the only difference that would possibly matter would be in the lenses but this would mean paying serious money.

So the upshot is the lenses make a difference but unlikely to be of concern to the general consumer level units.

The quality from Dig8 is great. I have to say, not so much better for VCD although still very good, but for SVCD it simply knocked spots off anything achieved prior using HI8 and a DC30Plus. Even my wife commented on the quality, and someone else, said he thought it was as good as broadcast standard. I think he was exageratting, but he was not being sarcastic either.

[Tommy]

It really depends on what you really want, if your intent is to replace the camera because you want a new camera, I would go with DV. I see almost no benefit to buying a new piece of equipment just because it can play old 8mm tapes. You could always use the DV (make sure it has this function) as a passthough to the computer. Yeah it means hooking up you old 8mm to the DV and then to the computer but its not hard.

Yes its true that if you look at the specs for DV and digital 8 it would be the same however, the DV cameras normaly have IMHO better lens etc.... and if your going to take videos it makes a lot of difference. A Better Camera Means Better Video. Of course DV cameras are normally smaller, which for me means i'll take it with me.

If you really don't want or need another camera the capture you get from the ATI raedon will be almost as good. The camera may be just a hair above but not much. Also when bringing in from DV, unless your in windows xp 2k, your going to hit the 4gb limit in about 18 minutes.

[jtor]

I would recommend that you completely disregard analog capture, and go firewire. Deciding between D8 and miniDV will depend on what you want to do, and you should consider the long run. D8 (or 8mm/Hi tapes are cheaper, and you'll have your cable connections to the very minimum (the D8 cam should have a pass-through feature, by the way).

[TIbrO]

Are "8MM HandyCam" tapes the same as Hi-8 tapes? Typhoid and I bought a RCA camcorder back in August and we've filmed a lot and made a few productions. I think the quality is okay for what it is... unprofessional video production. Reminds me of the Public Access Cable Channel quality, but ours is actually better. I am a lazy bastard, and am looking for any reason to ditch my awesome-for-video-capture Matrox Marvel G400-TV, so I can get an awesome-for-gaming GeForce3 card. If you guys are telling me that I can get a Digital8 camera and use a FireWire port to extract the video from the camera... I will do it. Because this means that if I buy a new Digital8 camcorder, I can use both cameras to film things, and the Digital8 one as the input for the PC. If Digital8, Hi8, and 8MM are completely different, please tell me.

I have a Sony TVR-230 Digital 8. Quality is excellent and playback of old Analog is good too. Let me caution you about one thing. Some models of Sony D8 camcorders DO NOT playback analog tape, such as Hi-8 or 8mm. Models like the 220 do not have that capability. Check everything out carefully.

And yes D8 is pure digital stored on Hi-8 tape. Hi-8 and 8mm are old anlogue formats. (The cheap analog camcorders still sold by sony are now all Hi-8 ). 8mm tape is NOT the same format as Hi-8/D8 tape. However most Hi-8 machines can playback (but not record to) 8mm tape.


I have owned one of all three of the types and love D8.


Using my D8 and a Firewire card I can transfer about 15 min of footage in about 5 minutes directly on to my hard drive. Raw footage takes up huge amounts of space, so make sure you have a big harddrive or a program that can spill it to another drive.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Theseus on 2001-10-01 18:28:06 ]</font>

[jtor]

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...If you guys are telling me that I can get a Digital8 camera and use a FireWire port to extract the video from the camera... I will do it. Because this means that if I buy a new Digital8 camcorder, I can use both cameras to film things, and the Digital8 one as the input for the PC. ...</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

And Theseus mentioned the key phrase..."SOME MODELS DO NOT...". I do not have a D8 camcorder, but I once had a Hi8XR (TRV85); this model can play and record on 8mm and Hi8 tapes. Now, a friend of mine had a D8 TRV410, I borrowed it and I was able to firewire transfer my old 8mm and Hi8 tapes to my PC.

On spec, they claim that digital8 cams can use 8mm and Hi8 tapes; as there's no such thing as Digital8 tapes. To be on the safe side, use Hi8 tapes as they are still cheaper compared to miniDV.

I agree with Theseus, check carefully the capabilities and features of the D8 camcorder. But looking at your post (and what you wanted to do), you should be able to find a D8 camcorder to do it for you.

[TOMMO]

jtor, you can buy DIGITAL 8 cassettes, i have jut checked mine and thats what they are. My TVR120 will play 8mm, HI8 and DIG8.

When I started out with my first camera, there were no digital options affordable. Now, I would not recommend anything else but digital and firewire. It is so simple and easy. You don't have to worry about expensive capture cards. And the quality is so good.

As an experiment, I used my Sony to play a DIG8 video into my computer, and then used it to play 8mm tape into my computer (wrong I know, I should have linked the two cameras together, captured onto my Sony, and then onto computer) but I wanted to see the result. It was so different I could not believe that it was so bad (Although it wasn't to me at the time until DIGI.

[jtor]

Digital8 cassettes...that's new. it's been a while since i've checked 8mm/Hi8 tapes anyway. thanks for the info.

Yes, digital/firewire is really THE way. I have my Hi8 cam resting in the cabinet for sometime now, as I moved to miniDV. It really is easier to get very good quality digital captures, as compared to analog approach.

[Tommy]

I agree Digital is the way to go. However I still use my HI-8 from time to time, and use the digital camcorder as a pass. The quality is good enough for vcd....

[Greg12]

but i thought that with mini-dv, it recorded to a hard disk in the camera and that once u filled it up with 2 hours, u couldn't record anymore till u transfer.

[jtor]

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On 2001-10-02 19:16:33, Greg12 wrote:
but i thought that with mini-dv, it recorded to a hard disk in the camera and that once u filled it up with 2 hours, u couldn't record anymore till u transfer.
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...I don't know about the hard disk thing. Does anybody here use a miniDV cam with built-in hard disk? You're probably refering to the Sony cams that use MiniDiscs (MD).

My camcorder (and I believe most miniDV camcorders) doesn't have a hard disk. And the tapes I've been using are for 1-hr (SP mode) shooting only. If that gets full, I just plug in another blank tape and resume.

[Tommy]

I don't think they have a MiniDV camcorder with a harddrive I believe they all run off of tape except a couple that run of disks. I have seen tapes longer than 1 hr but haven't picked any up, I think they were made by panasonic.

[bishop]

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Using my D8 and a Firewire card I can transfer about 15 min of footage in about 5 minutes directly on to my hard drive.
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Theseus on 2001-10-01 18:28:06 ]</font>
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Theseus,

How did you do this? Yes, I could do batch-capturing with Digital8- spending around three minutes to encode the batch list and let the computer capture say one hour of footage... but the video is stil transferred in realtime. I did not know you could achieve faster than realtime transfer!!!

[TIbrO]

Yeah, that's why I would even try using FireWire. Because of the faster than realtime capture speed. Otherwise I wouldn't move from where I am now, with my nice analog 8MM camcorder and my nice Marvel G400-TV.

Hmmm... so I have to get a certain model of camera that can play back and record to 8MM tapes but has firewire output to plug into the SoundBlaster Audigy's firewire port. If FireWire transfer of video is not faster than realtime, then I find it useless for me now, because I can already capture my video just fine now.

[jtor]

...whoa, I overlooked that comment from Theseus.

I'm capturing (or transferring) DV realtime. If there's a 'quicker' way of doing this, I want to know how...

[SingSing]

Can I pop in a 8mm tape and transfer to computer as digital file with a D8 camcorder ?

[jtor]

Singsing,

...scroll back, and check Theseus' post.

He mentioned that NOT ALL D8 camcorders have the capability to play 8mm/Hi8 recorded tapes, so you might want to look into the models a little deeper. The old model that I tried (TRV410) reads 8mm/Hi8 recorded tapes.

hope this helps.

[alexcomp]

Yes you can