Importing Hi8 tapes to MacBook w/Blackmagic Intensity Shuttle & Premiere

[TwiceUK]

Hi all,

I’m a complete newbie to using all the above, and after researching online I’m a bit stuck with it all. I’ll be honest, I only need to do this once as I’m converting all my dads old family tapes to digital for him for Christmas. I’m always up for learning but between frame rates, de/interlacing and understanding conversion in premiere, I’m running out of time and brain space

I’ve got the intensity shuttle (thunderbolt) from a friend, and using a DSC1024 as the time base corrector. I’ve got signal coming in fine and have made a few recordings but no matter what I change the project/sequence settings to, I’m getting 100GB+ files for less than 90mins of video. I’m sure it’s something stupid I’ve missed but I’m tearing my hair out.

Even after exporting as PAL DV, the files are 20GB or so.

If anyone can tell me what I’m doing wrong I’d really appreciate it.

Signal flow:
Sony EVC500E SVIDEO out -> SONY DSC1024 SVIDEO in ->
SONY DSC1024 VGA OUT -> BlackMagic Intensity Shuttle Component/YPBPR In

[Cornucopia]

DV is 13GB/Hr (25Mbps). ProRes is much higher (- like 4x to more than 10x). Filesize = Bitrate * Running time.

By the Tbolt connection I am assuming you are using a Mac, so your options are limited in choice of codec & bitrate.
Most mac workflows use Prores for editing stage, hence the size. Not a surprise really. But video does use up a lot, that's just one of the facts of media tech.

Scott

[TwiceUK]

DV is 13GB/Hr (25Mbps). ProRes is much higher (- like 4x to more than 10x). Filesize = Bitrate * Running time.

By the Tbolt connection I am assuming you are using a Mac, so your options are limited in choice of codec & bitrate.
Most mac workflows use Prores for editing stage, hence the size. Not a surprise really. But video does use up a lot, that's just one of the facts of media tech.

Scott

Thanks for your reply, but i'm not sure what this means. Am I not doing anything wrong then?

[usually_quiet]

DV is 13GB/Hr (25Mbps). ProRes is much higher (- like 4x to more than 10x). Filesize = Bitrate * Running time.

By the Tbolt connection I am assuming you are using a Mac, so your options are limited in choice of codec & bitrate.
Most mac workflows use Prores for editing stage, hence the size. Not a surprise really. But video does use up a lot, that's just one of the facts of media tech.

Scott

Thanks for your reply, but i'm not sure what this means. Am I not doing anything wrong then?

Yes, the file sizes are about what one would expect them to be for 90 min. of ProRes video and 90 min. of DV video.

Since DV is not a great choice to use for simply watching video, I have to ask why did you export to DV? H.264 in an mp4 container would provide wider compatibility with playback devices. If you are planning to use DV for archival copies of your captures because the Prores files are too big, there has to be something better available for that as well.

[dellsam34]

One thing in terms of hardware that you are doing totally wrong, You should not convert S-Video to RGB and capture it, It should stay S-Video coming out of the scan converter (which is really not a TBC). There is nothing you can do about file sizes, if you are out of storage space do one tape at a time and encode to h.264 and delete the raw file and move on to the next tape.

Also make sure the scan converter is in neutral settings, meaning, it is not converting to another standard, not upscaling, not de-interlacing, not changing aspect ratio ...etc