Multiple 8mm Format Conversion Strategy

[mentat2018]

I have a library of about 90 Video8 and Hi8 camcorder tapes (some of which are over 20 years old) and am in the process of converting them. I found a reasonably priced Sony GV-D200 deck and revived my old Sony Vaio CS series laptop (i.Link) to use along with Sony's PlayMemories program to get started. I've done a few Video8 conversions with some success although I noticed one or two sections in the AVI file skip during playback (like a tape drag effect) and some segments where the audio is slightly out-of sync.

After reading some threads I'm now a bit uncertain whether this is the best set-up. I know that the GV-D200 can play standard, hi, and dv tapes and has TBC but is there a better deck for capturing older tapes. Is the sync problem a hardware, connection, CPU, or program issue? If my captured .avi file from a single 120 min SP tape is 28GB is this really compressed? Am I losing color/quality by taking the Video8 to DV approach? Should I be using a different connection method other than the i.Link.

I wanted to burn each raw capture file to a BD disc but I guess eventually I'll have to convert to a different format to author DVDs. Will this reduce the quality?

I greatly appreciate feedback from the collective Video Help brain-trust. I have other questions about the process but feel I need to deal with these issues first.

Thanks

[JVRaines]

Is the sync problem a hardware, connection, CPU, or program issue?

The only way to know is to switch these out, one at a time, and see if/when it goes away.

If my captured .avi file from a single 120 min SP tape is 28GB is this really compressed?

DV is about 13 GB per hour.

Am I losing color/quality by taking the Video8 to DV approach?

Even though Video8 has lousy color resolution, I prefer 4:2:2 color subsampling to the 4:1:1 or 4:2:0 subsampling of DV. The reason is that color transitions can occur anywhere along the scan line since there are no fixed pixels.

I wanted to burn each raw capture file to a BD disc but I guess eventually I'll have to convert to a different format to author DVDs. Will this reduce the quality?

Neither format uses DV so you will have to re-encode. There is always loss when re-encoding from a lossy codec, even if not noticeable to the casual eye. My preference is to convert analog to a lossless digital codec, such as Lagarith or FFV1, then re-encode to lossy codecs as needed.

[dellsam34]

The player is fine, You are capturing in DV format and using the wrong software which no one knows what it is doing to the DV stream, it could be converting to MPEG-2 and that's why you have lip synch problems.
- Option 1 try using WinDV program, DV is lossy 4:1:1 for NTSC you will loose quality further when converting to Blu-ray'
- Option 2, Capture lossless using S-Video and Stereo audio outputs of the 8mm player, you will need a USB capture device, one of those old Pinnacle devices will do lossless just fine, Capture using AmaRecTV program in lossless 4:2:2 and author to Blu-ray with very minor quality loss.

[mentat2018]

Thanks you, JVRaines and dellsam for your valuable feedback, I have ordered an Elgato conversion dongle to bypass the i.Link and will experiment with the capture software and codec. Would either of you suggest turning TBC and/or DNR off on the analog capture or is it usually not a significant factor.

Regards

[SF01]

I use DCR-TRV828E to handle Video8, Hi8 and Digital8, it outputs DV over firewire it is then copied to customer's HDD, or converted to DVD, for their use it is enough.
Of course uncompressed, or lossless would be better, since it would be 4:4:4, DV is 4:1:1 for NTSC and 4:2:0 for PAL. Blu-Ray should support the bitrate of DV, but I'm not sure about the codec. DVD will always be of significantly worse quality and it's visible for longer material, since it has to be further compressed. for ~1h material my software uses ~7,5MBps, for ~2h it's around 4MBpa, the longest I burned was almost 4h long video from tape and it barely made it with under 1,8MBps.

And for transfer software use Scenalyzer, it's infinite trial license and it worls like a charm, once you correct the settings to your desire and it controls tape transport.