Blocky Artifacts When Capturing from Digital 8 tapes. Old Video 8 are OK.

[mperet15]

Hello,

I'm in the process of capturing old 8mm tapes going back from 1990 through 2008. The oldest ones are in Video 8 format and around 1999 the tapes transition to Digital 8 when my mother who shot the video bought her Sony DCR-TRV103 camcorder which can capture Digital 8.

When I capture the old Video 8 tapes from 1990-99, I'm able to get a nice, clean picture with good audio. However, when I put in a newer Digital 8 tape and start capturing, I'm left with a lot of blocky artifacts all over the picture. Some tapes are worse than others and the distortion doesn't occur on the entire tape.

Example: https://vimeo.com/user165921776/review/674245323/c303b2ce92

I'm using the same Sony DCR-TRV103 to capture the footage through the DV out connection to the Firewire 800 port on my old 2011 iMac. I'm capturing using Adobe Premiere Pro 2019.

I've noticed with this camera that if I put the tape in, rewind it to the beginning, turn the camera off and leave it for about 2 hours before I start capturing, I can get a good picture with almost none of these artifacts. Then I can go back to capturing the pre-1999 Video 8 tapes with no issues.

The particular tape I'm working on now is still giving me blocky distortion even after I've left it for about 2 hours. I'm not sure if the camcorder is going bad or maybe it's just the tapes. I don't have a cleaning cassette otherwise I would try cleaning the heads. Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

[dellsam34]

Your link is dead, but it could be dirty video heads dropping the signal out.

[mperet15]

Your link is dead, but it could be dirty video heads dropping the signal out.

The link works for me. I guess this is a more direct link:
https://vimeo.com/674245323


The tapes usually give me the most artifacts within the first 20-30 minutes and clear up by the last 30 minutes so I can get a clear recording.

[dellsam34]

Yah that's tape drop outs, It could be software related, NLE are heavy weight apps, The best way of doing it is using a lightweight app such as WinDV under Windows OS but since you lack that option it's hard to troubleshoot. Try cleaning the video head and go from there.

[mperet15]

Yah that's tape drop outs, It could be software related, NLE are heavy weight apps, The best way of doing it is using a lightweight app such as WinDV under Windows OS but since you lack that option it's hard to troubleshoot. Try cleaning the video head and go from there.

I'm also seeing the same dropouts happening on the camcorder preview screen as well so it's not just in Premiere. I'll try cleaning the head when I can get some chamois swabs or a cleaning tape.

I have a newer Windows PC that I could capture from but I would need to buy a Firewire PCIe card first.

[mperet15]

UPDATE: I found a Sony Cleaning Cassette in my old camera bag and ran it through the camcorder for 10 seconds twice. It fixed the issue!..mostly. I still have smaller dropouts in the beginnings of tapes but if I stop recording, rewind and re-record, I can usually get a drop-out free recording of that portion. Then I can stitch them together in premiere before doing the final H.264 .mp4 export.