Do all consumer Hi8 camcorders with FirePorts capture equally?

[kingmustard123]

I want to capture some Hi8 tapes and have heard FireWire is the best way to do this.

Today, eBay seems to have the following Hi8 FireWire cameras:

£190 Sony DCR-TR7000E
£170 Sony DCR-TR8000E

£200 Sony DCR-TRV110E
£165 Sony DCR-TRV140E
£190 Sony DCR-TRV238E
£200 Sony DCR-TRV320E
£180 Sony DCR-TRV325E
£200 Sony DCR-TRV480
£200 Sony DCR-TRV620E

There are more, but those are the options up to £200.

For my purpose, are they all basically equal?

[aedipuss]

the answer isn't that easy. hi8 is analog, so the camera has to do analog to digital conversion before sending out the firewire port. i'd buy the newest cam available with the least amount of hours on it that can be returned for free if it doesn't work.

[Alwyn]

Yes, camcorders are a bit of a crapshoot. Look closely at the pics; cleanliness can be an indication of how it's been looked-after.

As Aedipuss says, make sure you can return it if it doesn't work properly.

I haven't checked the others, but the 320E has a Timebase Corrector (TBC), which should help playing your Hi8 tapes.

I assume you have a Firewire port, or other means of getting DV into your computer.

[oln]

The digital8 camcorders from the first generation (TRV-110, TR-7000) lack the TBC/DNR feature so those are a bit different, otherwise the output is basically the same. The last generation (from that list that includes TRV-480) does lack s-video out though so those are not equal for capturing from the analog outputs.

The TRV-140 is a digital8 only model - from the 2nd generation of d8 camcorders and on , the cheapest digital8 models lacked the ability to playback analog tapes so also have to check for that if getting one for video8/hi8 playback.

[nicholasserra]

Agreed, check they are TBC and stereo first and buy the newest ones.

Some won't even play analog tapes, reference the list on the Digital8 wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital8

But even then, not a guarantee they'll play the tapes. I'd say my D8 cams play MOST of the analog tapes. But it doesn't always work.

Also make sure to turn on 16bit audio under the settings menu, or you'll get lower quality audio.

[dellsam34]

Generally speaking capturing analog tapes is better done via analog outputs, but that requires you to look for a camcorder with S-Video out and stereo audio out as well as the capability of TBC, But if you capture the analog tape using a D8 camcorder as the middle man for capturing via firewire then you don't have to worry about the above requirements, Firewire will deliver the converted and time based Y/C and stereo audio via firewire albeit with an added DV compression.