Hi8 Digitization Help

[ssbbnw]

Hi everyone,
I'm quite a bit late to the digitization party, but I have a few Hi8 cassettes of my parents' that I'd like to digitize. I have a few questions regarding the process:

1. I have a Sony Handycam CCD-TRV67 that I'm connecting to a Hauppauge USB-Live2 capture device. I'm hooking up video via the S-video cable, but I'm stuck on the audio, as the camcorder has only one black female RCA jack for audio (is that called mono?) while the USB-Live2 has RCA left and right jacks. Should I purchase a Y-splitter? (There is also a 3.5mm jack on the camcorder that I already have a splitter for - would that work?)
2. I have VirtualDub and the Lagarith code pack already installed on my computer. Is there any advantage to HuffYUV over Lagarith? Also, are there any beginner's guides for using VirtualDub to capture video from a USB capture device?

Sorry if my questions seem really basic - I'm from the millennium generation and never really grew up around this stuff. Thanks!

[ron spencer]

I use a Canopus ADVC 100 to capture directly to DV. Do you know of such products?

[ssbbnw]

I use a Canopus ADVC 100 to capture directly to DV. Do you know of such products?

Hi,
Thanks for your quick reply! I had seen that word floating around on the Internet before but had never bothered to search it up. It looks like they're not available in most places anymore, unfortunately. Do you have any other recommendations?

[KarMa]

(There is also a 3.5mm jack on the camcorder that I already have a splitter for - would that work?)

Yes. I actually do the opposite of converting RCA (Red/White) from the VCR to 3.5mm cause my card will only take 3.5mm.

Lagarith vs Huffyuv is just down to compression efficiency, with Lagarith tending to be slightly more efficient. FFV1 is even more efficient but it's too demanding for me to compress with it in real time, with my FX-6300, so I have to compress with it after the capture. Lagarith has a similar history, with it being considered useless a decade or more ago for capture because it was so demanding. But CPU speeds have improved enough that this is mostly a nonissue. Your capture USB dongle probably outputs in YUY2 so be sure to set the codec you use to YUY2 (or 422p or YUV 4:2:2)

[ssbbnw]

Yes. I actually do the opposite of converting RCA (Red/White) from the VCR to 3.5mm cause my card will only take 3.5mm.

Lagarith vs Huffyuv is just down to compression efficiency, with Lagarith tending to be slightly more efficient. FFV1 is even more efficient but it's too demanding for me to compress with it in real time, with my FX-6300, so I have to compress with it after the capture. Lagarith has a similar history, with it being considered useless a decade or more ago for capture because it was so demanding. But CPU speeds have improved enough that this is mostly a nonissue. Your capture USB dongle probably outputs in YUY2 so be sure to set the codec you use to YUY2 (or 422p or YUV 4:2:2)

Wow, thanks for the detailed info! I'll be trying that out then soon. I have an older custom rig (Phenom II X6 1100T) that should work alright with either codec. Thanks!

[JVRaines]

I'm hooking up video via the S-video cable, but I'm stuck on the audio, as the camcorder has only one black female RCA jack for audio (is that called mono?) while the USB-Live2 has RCA left and right jacks. Should I purchase a Y-splitter? (There is also a 3.5mm jack on the camcorder that I already have a splitter for - would that work?)

The mini jack is probably a headphone output, which may not give you the best sound since your converter is expecting line level. Be sure the headphone volume is not too high or you'll get distortion.

[SameSelf]

That is surprising that you only have a single RCA jack as I thought all Sony camcorders from that era were equipped with stereo outs. Can you tell if the microphone on the camcorder is stereo? Were the tapes recorded using this camcorder? IOW, it is possible the tapes have stereo audio (Hi8mm tape is certainly capable of such), but it appears Sony cheaped out on that particular camcorder and only provided a summed L/R RCA out. That stinks.

You don't technically need a Y-splitter as the USB capture device should just capture the audio into which ever channel you connect and the other channel will be blank. This will obviously cause problems on playback (only one speaker will have sound), so you would have to convert the "mono" track to stereo and could even add some stereo separation using a DAW (it could probably been done in Avisynth as well, but I will leave others to comment on that workflow). Anyway, why do all that if the Hi8 tapes have stereo audio? So I would definitely get a Y-splitter and refrain from using the headphone outs as already suggested or get a Sony Hi8 camcorder that has stereo outs.

Also, be careful with using Vdub for capture. Many people (just search the forum) report audio sync issues while others report better performance using AmarecTV. Also, capturing to a lossless format such as Lagarith YUV422 is great for editing, but not so great for archival. The ADVC 100 recommended in post #2 encodes directly to DV-AVI which is much better for archival due to smaller size. However, you can transcode your lossless captures to DV-AVI easily, so there is no need to run out and buy a ADVC 100 unless you want to short circuit the transcoding step. Ultimately it depends on what you plan on doing with the video, but given that you only have a few tapes, it is probably not worth it.

[ssbbnw]

@JVRaines, thanks for the tip. I'll probably use the RCA audio jack instead then.
@SameSelf, yes, I thought it was a little strange too! All the tapes were recorded using this, and we've had the camera lying around ever since. I checked in the manual and it seems that this SKU (I think it was released in 1999) only recorded monaural audio - thus, both the black RCA audio output jack and the 3.5mm audio jacks also output only monaural audio. I'll check out AmarecTV first then, and then use the packaged software with the Hauppauge if it doesn't work for me.

Thanks for all the help so far! Are there any guides for copying over monaural audio to both left and right tracks?

[KarMa]

Thanks for all the help so far! Are there any guides for copying over monaural audio to both left and right tracks?

Can just cap it as mono, and leave it as mono.

Edit: According to the manual the only one in that camera line that supports stereo is the CCD-TRV87. And what I now know is the headphone jack is also just a mono 3.5mm jack, same as the RCA mono. My Digital8 Handcam (which also supports 8mm/Hi8) has all 3 of the RCA plugs in a single 3.5mm jack, and the S-Video is on it's own.

I see your camera might also have a TBC and a DNR, which can be toggled in the menu. I would have the TBC ON and the DNR OFF.

[RMW0101]

Can you explain your comment "I have VirtualDub and the Lagarith code pack already installed on my computer. ". i have the exact same project (converting Hi8 tapes) and i looked into VDub and Lagarith but i do not know how to install one to the other. Can you explain the process in detail and what your work flow is once you have the 2 installed?

I have an elgato device and i used the elgato software to convert my tapes but i'm not happy with the quality and the size of the MR4's are huge (2GB+). i'm not sure if they would even be editable at that size.

Thanks for your help

RMW