Problem with 8mm video to digital transfer

[rosh400]

I am in the process of transferring my 8mm video to my PC. I am using a Canopus analog to digital converter box. I have never had any problems until last night. One of my tapes is not capturing well. During the capture process, the video keeps on freezing (regardless of the capture software I use). The freezes are consistently in the same places. THey show up in the playback of the avi file. When I view the image through the viewfinder of the the camcorder during capture, the image is smooth. I am not having this problem with any other tape.

Some thoughts I have are to connect the camcorder to the a TV and play the tape and see if the problem is in the camcorder's video out. Second, I could transfer the tape to VHS and see if the VHS is smooth. If so, I could try to capture the VHS and see if this works. I know there will quality degradation in this transfer but it would be better than nothing. I could also try to the capture with another 8mm camcorder or a player that will play 8mm tapes.

Any ideas what might be causing this problem or thoughts about how
to troubleshoot it? I would appreciate any suggestions. Thanks.

[yoda313]

Hello,

Try the dub to vhs. If the glitch still happens then you're probably stuck with it. But at least you could then dub the vhs tape and use virtualdub to check for bad frames.

Good luck.

Kevin

[rosh400]

Thanks for your suggestion about virtualdub. Any thoughts about how to search for bad frames easily or is it just a labor of love?

[stevedore]

I had a similar problem, which was solved by adding a timebase corrector between the vcr & the ADVC-100. Worked for both VHS & 8MM tapes.

[rosh400]

I googled Time Base Corrector having never heard of this device before. The least expensive that I have found is $289 (for a datavideo TBC-1000) which is about the same cost as my Canopus 100 converter box. Is there anything less expensive that will do the trick. Seems like alot for one problematic tape. Please let me know. Thanks.

[tphaggerty]

I have almost the same setup. Using Canopus ADVC 1394 (internal version of the -100). You probably have already done this, BUT, did you try using a head cleaner on your camcorder? I had a couple of tapes do similar things and cleaning helped. Or try another camcorder.

If you skip past where it hangs, can you capture then? (you could capture up to that point to one file, skip past & capture the rest).

Did you check disk space & fragmentation? If you delete the imported file and try again, you might be hitting a space issue in the same place on the tape due to the disk being full. I know this is a lame suggestion, but you never know.

[rosh400]

I did some further testing and had the following results. When I played the tape through the AV out to a TV it played fine. When I copied the tape to VHS it played fine with the expected loss of quality. When I tried capturing the VHS copy, I ran into the same problems at the same places on the tape. It is very consistent on where it starts skipping.

I have tried other prorgrams to capture and had the same problems.

One final test. I played the tape through the converter box and the capture software with the preview window open but capture off and had the same results.

Again, I have this problem only with this tape. I don't think it's the hard drive or I would have this problem with other tapes.

I will try cleaning the heads to see if that makes a difference and playing the tape on another camcorder. If all else fails, I will bring the tape to a local video editing shop in January see if we can test the timebase corrector solution.

I would appreciate any other thoughts. I really want to use this tape. Thanks to all.

[SallyDog]

I've been having the exact same problem with an 8mm tape. Playback on the LCD and via cable to TV is fine, but trying to capture looks terrible. The link below is from a Doom9 thread and asserts that this may be a macrovision issue (even on "home" shot video). The thread is over 2 years old, but the link to a software patch is still alive.

The thread also pertains to issues with the ATI radeon. Since that's the card I have, I may give the patch a shot. If so, I'll let you know the outcome.

SallyDog

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=35832&highlight=8mm+tape+problem