Capture from 8mm PAL Camcorder to Mini-DV NTSC Camcorder.

[bpinto]

I have a Sony 8mm Camcorder PAL with a lot of tapes of my kid as a child. I now have an NTSC Sony Mini-DV. I tried to capture my old tapes to the new Mini-DV, using the back to back A/V cable between the camcorders. I can hear sound on my Mini-DV but no picture. I looked at the troubleshooting section of the guide and realized that becaus the two formats PAL and NTSC are incompatible. Is there any way I can do this ? Thru a PC perhaps (My PC has Firewire/USB ports) and my 8mm camcorder has only A/V ports (yellow/white/red) jacks. Will i need an addtional card on m PC ?? Your help will be very much appreciated. Thanks

[DaveS]

bpinto - there will probably be several ways to do this..one would be to use the canopus advc-100 (http://www.canopus.us/US/products/advc-100/pm_advc-100.asp)..send your PAL analog signal in and it will come out on the firewire port, which you could hook up to your miniDV camcorder and record from there..the advc-100 also does a bunch of other things but is both pal and ntsc compatible on the analog side..it can be had new for $260 or maybe cheaper used on ebay..the nice thing is it locks your audio to video so the two don't drift apart as you are converting. again, this is only one approach, but something to get some ideas going.

the other question is why are you converting these to miniDV? miniDV is still tape, and will suffer over time as well...are you thinking of putting these on dvd later or maybe just want to prevent the analog signal from deteriorating?? just wondering

[bpinto]

Thanks for your reply. Took a look at the websit for ADVC-100. It's nifty. SO, in short, I can plug in my 8mm PAL Camcorder at one end and my NTSC MiniDV camcorder at the other and convert/transfer my tapes. Am i correct ??

The reason I'm converting them to DV is multifold, 1) my 8mm is going to die (2hr battery life less than 15 mins. I have no intention of buying another batery. 2) Can't watch any 8mm movies on my North American TV's (NTSC) (48" an 27"). So i have to see it on my 20" Multisystem TV.
3) I do intend to convert them to DVD.

[FulciLives]

The best way to do this is to capture your PAL 8mm video footage as PAL video. Then after you capture it you can convert to NTSC MPEG-2 DVD spec.

The problem is you can't use your NTSC DV cam to do the capture. You will need a capture device that will convert your analog PAL 8mm videotapes to a digital format for the computer.

As suggested the Canopus ADVC-100 is your best choice.

After that you will have a DV AVI file. You can edit to your heart's content then when you encode for MPEG-2 DVD spec you can also convert to NTSC format.

The PAL to NTSC conversion can be tricky but it's not ALL that hard either. If you find that you aren't up to that challenge you can still go ahead and make a PAL DVD and then buy a multi-system DVD player that will convert PAL DVD discs to NTSC format on playback.

Remember all the Canopus ADVC-100 does is convert analog video to DV AVI format for the the computer. If the original is PAL so will the DV AVI but if the original is NTSC then again so will the DV AVI file. You cannot input PAL into the Canopus ADVC-100 and output NTSC.

The conversion from PAL to NTSC must be done on the computer or as I said you can leave it as PAL and create a PAL DVD and then buy a DVD player that does PAL to NTSC conversion.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[DaveS]

@FulciLives...you're probably right re the advc100 (not sure if you've been wrong yet in this forum..) .. not sure why, but I was thinking the advc100 would convert but what you say makes sense..and the documentation doesnt' say either way

what's your recommendation on converting the pal to ntsc...I know procoder can do it but the less expensive express can't (at least it's not discussed on the site). Can vdub or avisynth do it?

Now I will keep my mouth (keyboard) shut..

[FulciLives]

@FulciLives...you're probably right re the advc100 (not sure if you've been wrong yet in this forum..) .. not sure why, but I was thinking the advc100 would convert but what you say makes sense..and the documentation doesnt' say either way

what's your recommendation on converting the pal to ntsc...I know procoder can do it but the less expensive express can't (at least it's not discussed on the site). Can vdub or avisynth do it?

Now I will keep my mouth (keyboard) shut..

Yes thank you so much it is true that I am always 100% correct :P

Converting PAL to NTSC is actually not that difficult. At first it might seem like it ain't easy ... it surely isn't a SIMPLE one-step process ... but it really isn't hard either.

It can be done rather nicely with AviSynth.

The "dirty" way is to deinterlace first then change the frame rate to 23.976fps (progressive NTSC) and change the frame size to 720x480 instead of 25 and there you go. This also requires that the audo be changed but that can be done with BeSweet.

I say that is the "dirty" way because it really only works best from PROGRESSIVE PAL sources such as what you get from a DVD because that way you don't have to deinterlace which preserves the quality.

If the source is INTERLACED it probably won't work this way WITHOUT deinterlacing and then you take a "hit" picture quality wise.

There is another method though that works very well and I have an AviSynth script for it but it seems most people think that Avisynth is "beyond" them and they don't even want to try although it really is not that hard!

The script I use for INTERLACED PAL to NTSC creates a new NTSC that is 29.970fps interlaced but has the same running time as the original PAL so you don't need to adjust the audio.

This script is really one that Xesdeeni developed.

See his website here CLICK HERE

Here is the script:

LoadPlugin("SmoothDeinterlacer.dll")
Avisource("D:\capture.avi")
crop(0,0,720,576)
SmoothDeinterlace(doublerate=true)
LanczosResize(720,480)
ChangeFPS(59.94)
SeparateFields()
SelectEvery(4,1,2)
Weave()
ConvertToYUY2()

This is an AviSynth 2.08 script because Xesdeeni's SmoothDeinterlacer plugin only works with AviSynth 2.08

The last line is for when you use this with Cinema Craft Encoder. If you are using this with TMPGEnc then you would change the last line to this:

ConvertToRGB()

And that's pretty much it!

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
You can find SmoothDeinterlacer.dll on Xesdeeni's website which I linked too in this past. If you do a google on AviSynth 2.08 you should be able to find it no problem. I often switch back and forth between AviSynth 2.08 and 2.5x (the newest one being 2.54 at this time) without any problems. I just install one or the other ... I don't even uninstall ... never caused me any issues.

[bpinto]

I've seen your replies and thanks for it. But just to clarify what I need to do.

Dave S. says :
- Connect my 8mm cam to the ADVC-100 using the A/V cable. Connect my Mini DV using the Firewire port.
- Specify on the ADVC-100 through the Dipswitch that the video is PAL.
- Capture the video to my Mini DV directly. The output to my Mini DV will be NTSC.
- Now that I have an NTYSC tape, I could do whatever else I need, like send it to a PC and burn it to DVD etc.

Fulcilives says
- Connect my 8mm cam to the ADVC-100 using the A/V cable. Connect my PC using the Firewire port.
- Specify on the ADVC-100 through the Dipswitch that the video is PAL.
- Capture the video to my PC using Windows Movie Maker.
- Once I have the PAL AVI file on my PC, I can use an app to convert this to NTSC for MPEG-2 or MPEG-1 (Video CD's). Can I use Windows Movie Maker or Nero to do this ? I have both. Or do I have to use Avisynth..

SO, from the two scenarios, which is correct ? The simpler, the better. Thanks for your replies.

[FulciLives]

SO, from the two scenarios, which is correct ? The simpler, the better. Thanks for your replies.

Why of course I am correct

There is another option. It means more money and probably less quality but would be easier.

You can buy a stand alone standards converter box. This box has a video in and video out. You input PAL and it will output NTSC. Quality of such boxes are usually decent but not always great.

So with this method you connect your 8mm cam to the converter box which converts to NTSC then you connect to the ADVC-100 setting it up for NTSC and then of course the ADVC-100 is connected to the computer and you capture NTSC DV AVI.

If I may say so I have one such standards converter that is used but works rather well. I'm trying to sell it if you are interested. I have more than one and no longer need more than one. Of course you can also buy these new though good models are usually at least $350 to $650 depending on the brand and model you select.

But like I said you will get better quality if you capture PAL DV AVI and then convert from PAL to NTSC on the computer. Just that for the inexperienced that method can be a bit "tricky" to get just right.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[DaveS]

I've seen your replies and thanks for it. But just to clarify what I need to do.

Dave S. says :
- Connect my 8mm cam to the ADVC-100 using the A/V cable. Connect my Mini DV using the Firewire port.
- Specify on the ADVC-100 through the Dipswitch that the video is PAL.
- Capture the video to my Mini DV directly. The output to my Mini DV will be NTSC.
- Now that I have an NTYSC tape, I could do whatever else I need, like send it to a PC and burn it to DVD etc.

Fulcilives says
- Connect my 8mm cam to the ADVC-100 using the A/V cable. Connect my PC using the Firewire port.
- Specify on the ADVC-100 through the Dipswitch that the video is PAL.
- Capture the video to my PC using Windows Movie Maker.
- Once I have the PAL AVI file on my PC, I can use an app to convert this to NTSC for MPEG-2 or MPEG-1 (Video CD's). Can I use Windows Movie Maker or Nero to do this ? I have both. Or do I have to use Avisynth..

SO, from the two scenarios, which is correct ? The simpler, the better. Thanks for your replies.

refer to fulcilives response to this question...if I happen to learn anything new / addt'l from canopus, I will post