Will Sony TRV250E play pre-recorded true Hi8 tapes?

[ozstar100]

Hi,

Will a..

SONY TRV250E 8MM HI-8 DIGITAL 8 PLAYER CAMCORDER

play Hi 8 tapes per-recorded on a Canon A1 Hi8 camera.

I have tapes i wish to transfer to PC and my Canon has carked it.

Will the firewire transfer give the same quality as the Hi8 camera recorded it?

Thanks

oz

[jouse.]

Hi,

A SONY TRV250E is not designed to play analog Video8 and Hi8 Tapes. So you will not be able to play your old analog tapes on this camcorder. Instead, you have to choose a camcorder from the Digital8 Series who can playback those, such as the TRV325E.

If you have a camcorder that can play the analog tapes, you will have the FULL quality out of your tapes captured in DV AVI on your Computer. I also did this with my collection, after trying various solutions with Hi8 Camcorders and other devices, but this truly is the best and easiest way to go!

[Richard_G]

I'm now going to contradict jouse as the TRV250E IS a Digital8 camcorder so WILL play back analogue tapes shot on standard Video8 and Hi-8 analogue camcorders. The Firewire transfer will give as good quality as it can read off the tape but bear in mind that you are taking an analogue signal from a tape and digitizing it in the camcorder. If, as is often the case, the head alignment or some other physical difference means that the Sony will not read the tapes properly, then the signal that gets digitized won't be as good. Try playing the tapes and see what the quality looks like. That is what you will get once they are digitized.

[aedipuss]

well i'll through in a third opinion. this is from the sony website and shows the 250 does not support a8 or hi8 playback, only d8. you'd need a higher model sony d8 cam to play back analog tapes.

[Richard_G]

I stand corrected then. I though all Sony Digital8 camcorders could play back analogue tapes. I've got an old TR7000E which was one of the very first D8 camcorders and I bought it because it could do just that.

[aedipuss]

sony cheaped out on lower models and excluded helpful features like analog play and analog to digital passthrough.

[ozstar100]

Wow Thanks guys for the input. I'm glad that is sorted. Only prob is I still don't have one.

Seems like they are as hard as hens teeth to find working. I am in Sydney oz and I see a few in US but not here.

I have put my Canon A1 Hi8 into the shop as that was the one I recorded the tapes in and I hope that it will be under $200 to fix it. It has not been used much as well.

For my immediate task, I have had to hire a player Sony GV-D800E which they tell me will also play Hi 8 analog. $90 bucks a day so I certainly hope so!!

Anyway I'll keep looking until I see whether my A1 Hi8 is okay. Hope so as it was as great camera.

Thanks again guys

oz

[Richard_G]

sony cheaped out on lower models and excluded helpful features like analog play and analog to digital passthrough.

I think for the UK market they all had analogue play but none had A-D passthrough unless you bought the really high end ones. I've noticed that although they look identical, the PAL models sold in the UK have slightly different model numbers to those sold in other PAL countries (we got the TRV140E but other countries got the TRV145E for example).

I've got a Canon A1 that was given to me as a non-worker. I asked in a Canon approved service centre and was told that they suffered badly with failing electrolytic capacitors. The only sure way of repairing it would be to replace every single electrolytic in it which would be so labour intensive that it wasn't economically viable.