Problems with Digital8 playback quality

[Paul William]

I bought the top-of-the-line (made in Japan) Sony Digital8 (TRV-510) camcorder in 2000. I recorded lots of home movies on Digital8 tape in SP, but never transfered them to HDD or DVD until I tried to do so recently. However, when I now try to play or transfer the old tapes, I get horizontal lines, especially if the subject is moving, which reminds me of analog tracking problems. I figured the camcorder was broken, so I bought a new Digital8 (bottom of the line: made in China) TRV-250 Sony, but when I try to play the old tapes on it, I get large blocks on the right side of the picture. I have since used the TRV-510 camcorder to record (via the s-video) inputs some analog material, and when I played the newly recorded tape back it played fine, with no lines or artifacts. What do you think is the problem? Is it that the tape tracking in the old camcorder has been drifting over time? Is it a tape quality/longevity issue? Do different digital8 camcorders track differently, such that tapes should only be expected to play on the camcorder that recorded them? If the camcorder has drifted out of alignment, can it be re-aligned? (of note: I have cleaned the head with a cleaning tape several times without any improvement). Am I SOL? - Paul

[gadgetguy]

You're initial description of the horizontal lines sounds like interlace. Interlaced video is normal and those lines are not noticable when played on a TV, but look awful on the computer screen unless you use a software that deinterlaces on the fly like PowerDVD.
Tracking on an analog VCR is to correct for slight differences in head alignment. You cannot get tracking lines on your TRV-510 camcorder video. The video information is stored in digital format on the tapes and if the head alignment was off you would probably have no video at all, or at least badly damaged.

If you read up on interlace and don't think that is what you're seeing in your video, then post a screen shot so we can see what you're seeing.

[Paul William]

I don't think its an interlace issue: the lines are present on the camcorder lcd screen when I play the tape on the camcorder, AND on the dv .avi file that results when I firewire capture the video onto the computer.

[gadgetguy]

The Camcorder LCD screen will indeed show interlace lines. Both the computer screen and the lcd screen are progressive devices and have the same problem displaying interlaced video. I have a TRV230 and I see the interlace lines in my LCD screen as well as on the computer, but when I play it from the cam to a TV, it looks fine. How does it look if you play it to a TV? That's the real test.

[edDV]

I don't think its an interlace issue: the lines are present on the camcorder lcd screen when I play the tape on the camcorder, AND on the dv .avi file that results when I firewire capture the video onto the computer.

All this is perfectly normal, nothing is broken.
When you view the material on an interlace TV or after you author to DVD everything will be fine.

To watch on a computer monitor, get PowerDVD or WinDVD viewers to realtime deinterlace for computer display.

If you encode/author a DVD be sure to maintain interlace.