Decent econmical way for converting 8mm (analog) video to H.264 files?

[salils]

I recently purchased Black Magic Design's video recorder (consumer model) for around $150 from B&H. I was very disappointed with the quality of the video! At 3.5mbps the H.264 encoding quality of SD material was considerably worse than DV. I realize DV is 25mbps..but H.264 is a newer, much more efficient codec. I have had no problems getting good quality H.264 out of non-real time software such as an export from Apple's compressor or Final Cut Pro (I actually encode SD lower than 3.5mbps for high quality web video with very little noticeable loss in quality) using no additional hardware. The interface of Black Magic's software was also EXTREMLY desiappointing. I couldn't control the resolution, I could only use their pre-sets for iPod, Youtube, etc. Ironically, the iPhone (480x352) preset looked just as sharp if not better than their "full resolution" setting. Likely because 8mm video is interlaced and therefore in reality the "full resolution" setting at 640x480 was overkill and the lower resolution of the iPhone settings allowed for less macro blocking.

Anyway, my question is: Besides going out and spending $450=$500 on Black magic's h.264 pro recorder, is there anything else out there that is cheaper and/or better that I could use for capturing the 40 or so hours of 8mm video I have into h.264 files (preferably playable on iPad). I'm on the fence about purchasing this pro recorder-will probably sell it once I'm done if I do decide to buy it but I wanted to check here to see if there's a better option especially considering my experience with their other product.

I have a Macbook Pro 2.2ghz core 2 duo, 4gb ram running OS X lion currently, but it's having some issues so I'll likely be purchasing on of the i5 macbook pros w/thunderbolt soon. Also, I'll probably be purchasing a Digital 8 camera when I do this conversion as it seems one of with decent heads may provide better quality than the 15+ year old Samsung 8mm camcorder I have. Any input would be greatly appreciated!

[edDV]

Real time encode to h.264 is a hardware process. The quality depends on the BM hardware codec which seems to be less than optimal. A real time h.264 broadcast encoder runs $2K to $25K. To get the best out of it, cap to the higher bit rates and interlace at 640x480 (or 704x480) if possible. That will be your archive file. Then use that to re-encode for various devices. Most devices will require deinterlace before encode. I suggest Handbreak for encoding to mobile devices. It has a good deinterlace filter and uses the x.264 codec.

I prefer capping 8mm to DV, then encode non-realtime to MPeg2 or h.264.

I've found that my original 8mm camcorder to Canopus ADVC gets a cleaner capture than a D8 camcorder but mileage can vary.

[salils]

I see, any thoughts on Black Magic's "pro recorder"? $500 seems pretty cheap in comparison?

EDIT: Also, after trying a friend's new macbook pro, it looks like it can encode h.264 close to 2x realtime but this isn't during capture. Is there some sort of software that could take an incoming video stream and convert this at the same time or do I have to just capture in say DV and then be encoding again in the background? Thanks for the bit on your camcorder being cleaner than a D8, I'll have to do a comparison.

[edDV]

I see, any thoughts on Black Magic's "pro recorder"? $500 seems pretty cheap in comparison?

EDIT: Also, after trying a friend's new macbook pro, it looks like it can encode h.264 close to 2x realtime but this isn't during capture. Is there some sort of software that could take an incoming video stream and convert this at the same time or do I have to just capture in say DV and then be encoding again in the background?

Realtime encoding is a different process. With non-realtime software encoding, the encoder uses computer memory to see multiple frames at a time to do deinterlace or motion estimation. A good realtime encoder needs multiple frames of memory to do similar processing in hardware only. The cheap ones don't store frames so must resort to lower quality techniques. This means higher bit rates should be used to get acceptable quality.

[salils]

I see, any thoughts on Black Magic's "pro recorder"? $500 seems pretty cheap in comparison?

EDIT: Also, after trying a friend's new macbook pro, it looks like it can encode h.264 close to 2x realtime but this isn't during capture. Is there some sort of software that could take an incoming video stream and convert this at the same time or do I have to just capture in say DV and then be encoding again in the background?

Realtime encoding is a different process. With non-realtime software encoding, the encoder uses computer memory to see multiple frames at a time to do deinterlace or motion estimation. A good realtime encoder needs multiple frames of memory to do similar processing in hardware only. The cheap ones don't store frames so must resort to lower quality techniques. This means higher bit rates should be used to get acceptable quality.

Yeah, I wonder if there is a way it could start encoding a file before it has been finished, while this wouldn't be acceptable for real-time broadcast, for a simple conversion a delay of a few seconds or minutes of course wouldn't really matter.

[edDV]

I see, any thoughts on Black Magic's "pro recorder"? $500 seems pretty cheap in comparison?

EDIT: Also, after trying a friend's new macbook pro, it looks like it can encode h.264 close to 2x realtime but this isn't during capture. Is there some sort of software that could take an incoming video stream and convert this at the same time or do I have to just capture in say DV and then be encoding again in the background?

Realtime encoding is a different process. With non-realtime software encoding, the encoder uses computer memory to see multiple frames at a time to do deinterlace or motion estimation. A good realtime encoder needs multiple frames of memory to do similar processing in hardware only. The cheap ones don't store frames so must resort to lower quality techniques. This means higher bit rates should be used to get acceptable quality.

Yeah, I wonder if there is a way it could start encoding a file before it has been finished, while this wouldn't be acceptable for real-time broadcast, for a simple conversion a delay of a few seconds or minutes of course wouldn't really matter.

All encoders-decoders that access frames of memory have delay. Mainconcept has a realtime software MPeg2 encoder that buffers video to memory for processing. It needed a Core2 Duo to do acceptable SD encoding. I'm expecting someone to do a software h.264 real-time encoder now we have i7 + ' Cuda GPU hardware assist.

Keep in mind that h.264 is intended to be asymmetrical (i.e. longer encode, faster decode).