Help with digitising Hi8 tapes (PAL/NTSC confusion, playback issues, sync d

[LouisHUK]

Hi all,

I’m trying to digitise my wife’s late father’s Hi8 tapes at as high quality as is possible from my home and I’ve run into a few issues I could use help with:

Format uncertainty: The camera was likely purchased in the US (so NTSC), I belive he used a CCD TR600, but he also lived in New Zealand (PAL is possible).

Gear available:

Mac Studio 2025 (with FireWire + dongles)
Elgato USB capture device
Sony DCR-TRV120E (PAL, with FireWire)
Sony CCD-TR700 (NTSC)

Problems:

About half the tapes will play in both cameras, the other half won’t play in either.

I successfully captured one tape using FireWire + the TRV120E into QuickTime. The quality looks good, but:
The playback is choppier on the Mac than on the camera’s built-in screen.
The audio slowly drifts out of sync until it’s ~5–10 seconds off by the end of a 2-hour tape.

Questions:

Is there a way to fix the choppy playback and audio sync drift?
Is DaVinci Resolve Studio suitable for correcting frame rate issues, de-interlacing, and audio sync, or should I be using something else?
Any tips for figuring out why some tapes don’t play in either deck?

Thanks in advance —

[LouisHUK]

Having run another tape through both cameras, I've noticed when I play it through the 120E via Firewire to the Mac the audio is pretty staticy and not great quality, however via RCA it comes out clear, any ideas how to fix this?

[johnmeyer]

My best guess is that your Hi8 is NTSC and your DCR-TRV120E is trying to conform it to PAL. I suggest using MediaInfo (free download) to get the specs on your problematic captured file. What fps does it show for the video? Even if you are not sure whether a given tape is NTSC or PAL, you might get some hint from the content or the dates on which it was recorded. I assume your wife knows where her dad was living at various points in time, and that may give you a clue as to which format it was recorded in.

What "capture" software are you using? When you receive DV video into your computer via the Firewire/1394 connection, it technically is not a "capture" because the digitization has already happened in your DCR-TRV120E. However, if you don't have things set up correctly, you can indeed get dropped frames. Having said that, one of the great things about DV is that, if you use the correct capture software, you almost never get plagued with dropped frames, but if you have incorrect DMA settings (OK, that's a really old problem you probably don't have), or some other setup issue, it is possible to drop frames.

If you have Windows, I highly recommend that you use Scenalyzer to capture the DV video.

You also might want to step through your captured video one frame at a time, using VirtualDub or your NLE. Do you see dropped or duplicated frames? I ask because the jerkiness you see can also be caused by lousy playback software. A lot of modern media players seem to have forgotten about DV video and don't do a very good job. Try playing back instead using VLC.

[rgr]

HI successfully captured one tape using FireWire + the TRV120E into QuickTime.

It is better to rip to the original DV format in an AVI file.

The playback is choppier on the Mac than on the camera’s built-in screen.
The audio slowly drifts out of sync until it’s ~5–10 seconds off by the end of a 2-hour tape.

Bad capture.

Is there a way to fix the choppy playback and audio sync drift?

Just capture it again, only correctly. To AVI.

[LouisHUK]

HI successfully captured one tape using FireWire + the TRV120E into QuickTime.

It is better to rip to the original DV format in an AVI file.

The playback is choppier on the Mac than on the camera’s built-in screen.
The audio slowly drifts out of sync until it’s ~5–10 seconds off by the end of a 2-hour tape.

Bad capture.

Is there a way to fix the choppy playback and audio sync drift?

Just capture it again, only correctly. To AVI.

What programme do you suggest I use for this?

[Alwyn]

Disregard, you're on a Mac.

[rgr]

HI successfully captured one tape using FireWire + the TRV120E into QuickTime.

It is better to rip to the original DV format in an AVI file.

The playback is choppier on the Mac than on the camera’s built-in screen.
The audio slowly drifts out of sync until it’s ~5–10 seconds off by the end of a 2-hour tape.

Bad capture.

Is there a way to fix the choppy playback and audio sync drift?

Just capture it again, only correctly. To AVI.

What programme do you suggest I use for this?

Use Windows for that. I don't know if there's any miniDV capture software for Mac. The one you're using isn't.
Maybe this helps: https://leolabs.org/blog/capture-minidv-on-macos/

[dellsam34]

To sort out the format problem run all the tapes through the NTSC camcorder first, the ones that played are NTSC, don't playback these NTSC tapes with a PAL camcorder because you get chroma signal conversion, you want the best capture.

The tapes that display D8 (with the 8 inside the D logo) in the camera display during playback are digital tapes, Transfer these via firewire using SCLive, I recommend to use PC and ditch Mac.

The analog tapes are better captured via S-Video and stereo audio AV out to a an analog capture software such as vdub or AmarecTV using a recommended USB capture device and I also recommend PC for this.

[Alwyn]

I have zero experience with Mac, but I'd try imovie, as per this Youtuber.