I thought for sure there would already be an answer, but I read for an hour and couldn't find it anywhere on the forum.

I have about 2x D8 tapes, 20x Hi8 tapes, and 3x 8mm tapes that I want to record on my Mac in the least lossy way I can.

Here's what I have so far:
  • backwards compatible Sony DCR-TRV350 D8 camera that has S-video, Composite, and DV/Firewire connections
  • El Gato HDMI 4k Capture Device
  • Composite->HDMI converter
  • A Mac Pro computer with Firewire

Here's what I know so far (and please correct me if I'm wrong):
  • For D8 Firewire is as good as anything
  • For Hi8 and 8mm S-Video is better than both DV and Firewire, because there is less loss/compression
  • Codecs for Mac are limited and my best bet is ProRes

My main questions:
  1. Is all of that correct so far?
  2. Is there a way I can capture a pretty lossless image from what I already have, either with the TRV350->Dv/Firewire->Mac Pro or TRV350->Composite->Composite-HDMI converter->El Gato HDMI capture->Mac Pro?
  3. Or do I need a Hi8 camera with an S-video out and an S-video capture device?
  4. In that case, what is a solid S-video capture device for the Mac? The only one I found that works on Mac (El Gato) says it compresses the video into H264
  5. Finally, is ProRes actually my least lossy codec on Mac and is it actually holding more info to be worth the space requirement?

Thank you so much in advance for your help and I really apologize if this was already answered and I couldn't find it.

peace