Hi8 video Capture workflow - finishing to Atomos Ninja Blade

[lpdg1]

Hi,

I hope anyone with skill can help,

I'm an amateur enthusiast trying to digitise my over 120 video8 tapes, (I couldn't afford using an external service for this so I decided to go solo)

I know you guys know your stuff,

Just wondered on a yay or nay in your opinion on the following setup:

Starting with a s-video out from Camcorder into the following setup:

1: SONY RDR-HXD870 (has a reasonable TBC), then out again via s-video to

2: Analgue-to-SDI converter (blackmagic design), into -

3: Decimator Design MD-HX - the out via HDMI cable to

4: Ninja Blade, (writing Pro Res LT 1080p)

Looking forward to any advice you may have

Cheers,
LP

[VWestlife]

I don't understand the need for so many conversion steps. Most Hi8 camcorders have a built-in TBC, as do all Digital8 camcorders with analog Video8/Hi8 playback, so just use one of those to play the tapes. And with a Digital8 camcorder, you can connect it to a computer via FireWire and use that to digitize the tapes. (Ignore the constant whining about the DV codec's color space -- Video8 is barely better than VHS-quality, and you'll never notice the difference.)

Wikipedia has a list of which Digital8 camcorders support analog playback:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital8#Analog_recordings

[dellsam34]

Keep your workflow in SD, don't convert to HD on the fly, won't do you any good. Use SDI and save the lossless stream into computer with a SDI to USB interface and save as AVI 4:2:2 PAL or NTSC, From here you can then de-interlace, upscale or do any processing you wish to perform to the master files.

You can get a decent Hi8 camcorder so you don't need a DVD recorder in the chain.