Sony DCR-TRV103 (DV recording) - 8mm to digital format on laptop

[DaveTRV88]

I have 11 years of home videos on 8mm tapes. Years ago my wife and I (mostly my wife) used a DVD recorder to burn most of these tapes to DVDs. We recently discovered that we didn't go back and burn the last 3 years of this time period. We have no idea where the DVD burner is now, plus I would like to go back to the beginning and capture all the tapes in digital format with the best quality as possible. I would like to use my laptop (Win10 Pro HP ZBook 15u G5 with 16 GB RAM) to capture these videos in digital format. Any help is much appreciated. Thanks! Dave

[aedipuss]

d8 tapes. to transfer digitally to the laptop it would need a firewire port input. there is no other way and you are probably at least 10 years too late to have a firewire port.

[Barrythecrab]

I believe with the proper D8 camera you can capture using S-video, lossless.

[aedipuss]

I believe with the proper D8 camera you can capture using S-video, lossless.

no.


d8 is digital on tape. the only way to transfer that intact digital information from a sony d8 cam is over firewire. the s-vid out performs a digital to analog conversion which then can be captured via an analog to digital re-conversion which is in no way lossless.

[dellsam34]

The OP said that he has 8mm tapes, So it could be Video8, Hi8 or D8, unless the OP comes back and state what 8mm tapes he has there is no definitive answer for him. But if he meant Video8 by 8mm then the only lossless conversion is thru S-video using D8 camcorder, firewire will be okay but it will be DV codec not lossless AVI. What is meant by lossless is after the video has been converted to digital it stays that way with no lossy compression.

[aedipuss]

trv-103 (digital recording) is what the post says.

[Barrythecrab]

I’m happy to gather knowledge here, and I mention lossless almost as a side note, what I was trying to contribute was...if FireWire is unavailable then that camera has S-video as a quality option. Am I wrong? That’s ok, I can take it, I’m not really that crabby.

[dellsam34]

No, you're not wrong, If the tapes are analog then S-Video is the best, If the tapes are digital then firewire is the best, Any other combinations are possible but with less optimum quality.

[Barrythecrab]

I think the OP (me too) would benefit from this question...
After capture/copy, if any edits are needed, such as color correction, titles, etc, which is a better option?

[dellsam34]

Again, Depends on what tape/tapes you have.

[Barrythecrab]

Maybe I’m not asking it right...
If I’m digitizing V8 and Hi8, and I’m using my D8 Sony 530 via S-video, VDub Huffyuv,
am I getting a lossless and worthy file? Or should I find a Hi8 camera?

[dellsam34]

Both Digital8 and Hi8 camcorders are good for analog tapes as long as they are equipped with line TBC/DNR and S-Video out, Video8 camcorders are not ideal because they don't have S-Video out and they can only playback Video8 tapes.

[Barrythecrab]

Thank you!
Have a great 2021...(he says hopefully)

[DaveTRV88]

Thanks for all the quick replies everyone. Yes my Sony DCR-TRV103 states that it is a Digital Video Recorder, but I believe that depends on the tapes used for the recording (which was stated). Upon reviewing the tapes, there is a mix of tapes which just indicate '8' and tapes that have 'Hi8' on them. So if I'm understanding these posts correctly, I would have to use the S-Video and composite ports to capture the best quality for the Standard 8 tapes, and use the firewire port to capture the best quality for the Hi8 tapes. Sound right?

[dellsam34]

No, S-Video for V8 and Hi8 tapes and firewire for D8 tapes.

[aedipuss]

Thanks for all the quick replies everyone. Yes my Sony DCR-TRV103 states that it is a Digital Video Recorder, but I believe that depends on the tapes used for the recording (which was stated). Upon reviewing the tapes, there is a mix of tapes which just indicate '8' and tapes that have 'Hi8' on them. So if I'm understanding these posts correctly, I would have to use the S-Video and composite ports to capture the best quality for the Standard 8 tapes, and use the firewire port to capture the best quality for the Hi8 tapes. Sound right?

are you looking at the tape manufacturer label? there are two types of 8mm tape cassettes. 8mm and hi8. 8mm can only have analog 8mm recording on it. hi8 tape can either have hi8 analog or di8 digital recording on it.

hi8 is analog. di8 is digital.

[dellsam34]

It's easy to spot digital recording from analog, just look at the sides of the frame, If you see black noisy bars on the sides and a noise bar at the bottom of the frame it's analog, If all the frame edges are clean it's digital. Note that the camera viewfinder is not the best tool to do this test, use the capture software.

[DaveTRV88]

Not sure they had D8 tapes when I purchased my Sony DCR-TRV103 (1999). The manual states that it recommends Hi8 tapes for digital recording. Also just found this article. http://videotransferboston.com/8mm-hi8-and-digital8/ - All Hi8 tapes I have should contain digital DV format, and thus I should be able to use the firewire port to capture in best quality. I will still have to use the S-video/composite cables for videos on the plain '8' tapes. Now to figure out how to get these videos to a computer, and capture the them. I'm thinking about adding a S-video/composite expansion card, and a firewire expansion card to an older PC that I have around the house. Either that or use adapters for both outputs that would convert to usb 3.0. Probably would have loss of quality if using a converter. Thanks in advance!

[dellsam34]

It's better to use PCI cards on an old computer if it has win 7, A lot of drivers for win 7 platform.

[DaveTRV88]

Yeah. That's what I was thinking. Thanks everyone for you help.

[DaveTRV88]

Don't know if I need to start a new thread or not. I am now attempting to capture the video on non-Hi8 tapes to a refurbished Windows 7 computer. I added a s-video and composite capture card, and have the s-video and composite audio cables connected on both sides. Any suggestions for free software? The plan is to start playing the camcorder and the video software will capture it to digital format. Thanks again!!!

[aedipuss]

virtualdub is what i'd try first.

[DaveTRV88]

Thanks aedipuss. That seems to work but the files are huge 21GB for about 18 minutes of video. Is there a setting a can select to get this down a little? Thanks as always.

[phelissimo_]

That seems to work but the files are huge 21GB for about 18 minutes of video. Is there a setting a can select to get this down a little?

Did you use HuffYUV?

[DaveTRV88]

So I downloaded the HuffYUV files and extracted. Do I place the two files in the VirtualDub folder? I did that but still didn't see a way to browse out to them. Thanks!

[PEvans]

Not sure they had D8 tapes when I purchased my Sony DCR-TRV103 (1999). The manual states that it recommends Hi8 tapes for digital recording. Also just found this article. http://videotransferboston.com/8mm-hi8-and-digital8/ - All Hi8 tapes I have should contain digital DV format, and thus I should be able to use the firewire port to capture in best quality. I will still have to use the S-video/composite cables for videos on the plain '8' tapes. Now to figure out how to get these videos to a computer, and capture the them. I'm thinking about adding a S-video/composite expansion card, and a firewire expansion card to an older PC that I have around the house. Either that or use adapters for both outputs that would convert to usb 3.0. Probably would have loss of quality if using a converter. Thanks in advance!

First post! (I'm going to have lots of questions but I'm hoping to contribute here.)


I have the same camcorder as you and I bought it in 1999 also. I had a Hi8 camcorder previously.

First, there were never "D8" tapes per se. The tapes themselves were labeled Hi8, but the D8 camcorders like the TRV103 recorded in Digital8. I have a mix of these tapes, and the nature of the recording depends on the record date (really whether I used my new D8 camcorder).

Second (no one has mentioned this yet), the TRV103 plays both D8 and Hi8 content beautifully over Firewire into iMovie (I use a Firewire to Thunderbolt adapter on my Mac). HOWEVER, at least iMovie will not capture the Hi8 content as video files on the computer. I think this has to do with timecode used on the Video8 and Hi8 recordings and relatively recent versions of iMovie, but I'm still trying to figure it out. I have no idea if this would be an issue with Windows video software. I'm on a bit of a quest to find the preferred way to capture Hi8 recordings as digital files in the Mac environment given the choices presently available.

[dellsam34]

Second (no one has mentioned this yet), the TRV103 plays both D8 and Hi8 content beautifully over Firewire into iMovie (I use a Firewire to Thunderbolt adapter on my Mac). HOWEVER, at least iMovie will not capture the Hi8 content as video files on the computer. I think this has to do with timecode used on the Video8 and Hi8 recordings and relatively recent versions of iMovie, but I'm still trying to figure it out. I have no idea if this would be an issue with Windows video software. I'm on a bit of a quest to find the preferred way to capture Hi8 recordings as digital files in the Mac environment given the choices presently available.

We did mention it, check post #8, Capturing analog tapes over firewire is okay but not recommended due to the limited chroma produced by the DV standard especially for NTSC.

[PEvans]

Second (no one has mentioned this yet), the TRV103 plays both D8 and Hi8 content beautifully over Firewire into iMovie (I use a Firewire to Thunderbolt adapter on my Mac). HOWEVER, at least iMovie will not capture the Hi8 content as video files on the computer. I think this has to do with timecode used on the Video8 and Hi8 recordings and relatively recent versions of iMovie, but I'm still trying to figure it out. I have no idea if this would be an issue with Windows video software. I'm on a bit of a quest to find the preferred way to capture Hi8 recordings as digital files in the Mac environment given the choices presently available.

We did mention it, check post #8, Capturing analog tapes over firewire is okay but not recommended due to the limited chroma produced by the DV standard especially for NTSC.

At least for me and my version of iMovie capturing analog Hi8 over Firewire is not a matter of recommended or not recommended. iMovie gives a "no data from device" message and there is no capture file created. This is the case from either a TRV103 camcorder or a GV-D200 D8 VCR as the source device. It is too bad, because the image quality on the computer monitor is great. If I have this wrong please say so, as this use case is my basic challenge.

[dellsam34]

[At least for me and my version of iMovie capturing analog Hi8 over Firewire is not a matter of recommended or not recommended. iMovie gives a "no data from device" message and there is no capture file created. This is the case from either a TRV103 camcorder or a GV-D200 D8 VCR as the source device. It is too bad, because the image quality on the computer monitor is great. If I have this wrong please say so, as this use case is my basic challenge.

You are at a disadvantage because mac is not a good platform for capturing analog in a lossless way, So you are limited to the ancient lossy codec called DV. PC platform especially win7 is the best choice. Some mac users managed to pull it off but I don't know how since I've never owned a mac.

[PEvans]

OK so let me try to confirm my understanding, since this is on OP's topic.

For analog Video8 and Hi8, the recommendation is to export from the player over S-Video to a PC capture card. I guess here the digital file format would not be DV, it would be AVI?. Ideally there would be TBC and maybe DNR in there, either in the source player or in a standalone device in-between?

How important is TBC for Hi8 (as distinct from VHS)?

If this is correct, would you use the same work flow for Video8 and Hi8, or would you use composite rather than S-Video for Video8?

In both cases you would not use the player to play Video8 or Hi8 as digital over Firewire even if the player is capable?

For Digital8, it is already as DV, so it is just a matter of transferring the data from the tapes to the computer over Firewire?