Alright so I have some captures from hi8 tapes from when I was a youngin' but they were done over DV and the camera wasn't as happy with the tapes leading to some audio and video noise/lines. I've acquired a new-to-me Digital8 camera with S-Video output so I'm looking for the best quality transfer of these tapes. I'm about to rerun all the tapes and will probably do DV and S-Video simultaneously for comparison

I have acquired the Startech USB3HDCAP or whatever and connected it via s-video to this device. I'm then able to access the video in a raw format using "directshow" and encode that to prores 422 on my laptop, stashing it to giant disk array.

Are there any tips/tricks/recommendations to the color space? Here's what I'm doing right now:
  1. startech unit for video, zoom H6 for audio
  2. using the 'dshow' ffmpeg option
  3. 720x480 resolution with yuyv422 color space
  4. sending this to prores 422 standard, mov format
  5. result to Topaz AI for video, then some audio cleanup to cut noise
I've seen some comparisons online and my own results suggest there may be some color space clipping on the s-video path. How do I understand video levels here? Is there any way to adjust the range with the startech unit or am I stuck with this?

In addition, is the time base corrector a good move with these Sony units? Mine does have the option to disable this feature but I assume with the digital 8 era it's still doing A=>D=>A conversion.

Also is there any noise reduction/AI specifically for the good old sound of a Hi8 head whipping around? I'm familiar with the methods for reducing tape hiss but not repetitive noises like that.