Does anyone capture 8mm via camcorder to PC?

[Jedi27]

Hi,

Does anyone do the above using the passthrough feature of their camcorder?

If not, do you capture 8mm at all and how do you do it? I was thinking the only option would be to VHS then to the camcorder to the PC?

Cheers,
Jedi27

[Hojobey]

I capture my 8mm by passing it through my digital camcorder. I have a Sony trv-18 and it works great.

I considered other ways to do it and then figured I was ultimately going to be getting a digital camcorder anyway. If you do get a digital camcorder, MAKE SURE it has analog passthrough capabilities. Not all of them do.

The other option is to get a Sony Digital 8 camcorder and then you can capture without passing through from one camcorder to the next (it will convert it from analog to digital). The only negative is that digital 8 are bigger.

I have now capture and burned to DVD about 30 home video on 8mm and am very pleased with the outcome. Any more questions, just ask. (By the way, do not copy from 8mm to VHS and then capture. Analog to Analog will surely degrade the quality before you capture.)

[Jedi27]

Thanks Hojo.

I take it your 8mm projector has the rca jacks (yellow, white, red) to hook up to your camcorder? I have a Sony TRV-720 which has the passthrough (fantastic feature!

I'm starting a small home business of transferring VHS to DVD and someone asked "what about 8mm?" so I'm now set to go.

Thanks for the point regarding transferring 8mm to VHS b/c I have 5 30 year old tapes which have some mold. I'm bringing them to a guy to restore, but he charges $135/hr to transfer from 8mm to DVD! yikes! He only charges $60 to VHS so I'm going to try that route first.

I may have more questions for you. You da man! Thanks.
Jedi27

[Hojobey]

Jedi27:
I'm a little confused. Your model camcorder is a Digital 8. If you want to capture your 8 mm, you should be able to put the 8mm right in your digital 8 camcorder because it reads both digital 8 and 8mm. When you connect that via fire wire to your computer, you should have no problem capturing that in digital format and then creating a DVD.

With VHS (which I have done several times for my wedding video and other VHS tapes), simply connect your VCR to your sony (the output on the VCR to the input in the sony), using whatever capture software you like, when you press play on the VCR you will be able to capture. Your camcorder actually converts the analog signal to digital as it passes through and sends in DV format to your computer. I am doing exactly what you are trying to do. If you have more questions, or if I am misunderstanding you, let me know.

[Hojobey]

Here is segment I have cut and pasted from the "How To" section. I left the authors name on it so he receives the credit for this:

Capturing 8mm/Hi8 with a Digital8 Camcorder

Sony has a line of Digital camcorders that use the same Hi8 tapes that earlier analog camcorders used. These Hi8 tapes are bigger than the mini-DV tapes that are used by pure digital camcorders and therefore Digital8 camcorders tend to be larger than other digital camcorders.

Many Digital8 camcorders will play 8mm and Hi8 analog tapes directly and output them as DV AVI over a firewire connection. Nearly all early Digital8 camcorders had this capability, however Sony has lately been limiting this feature to its middle-to-higher end Digital8 models. If you want this capability, make very certain that the camcorder that you are considering actually has it.

If your old analog camcorder has already died leaving you with orphaned 8mm/Hi8 tapes, the Digital8 may be the perfect bridge solution for you. Even if your analog camcorder still works, you might prefer to playback your tapes in a Digital8 camcorder for capture purposes. The middle-to-higher end Digital8 players have:
- TBC -- Time Base Corrector which is used to correct jitter in the tape (especially useful for older tapes)
- DNR -- Digital Noise Reduction.

This means that the Digital8 players can often play back your analog tapes better than the analog camcorder that produced them.


The Capture Process with your Digital8 Camcorder:

1. Put your 8mm/Hi8 tape into your camcorder and try to play it. The camcorder should generally automatically sense that the tape is analog. If it does not, you may have to go into the menus and manually tell the camcorder that it is an analog tape. When dealing with a poor quality analog tape, you may have also have to turn off the time-based-correction and/or digital noise reduction (in the case of a very poor tape, these features can do more harm than good).

2. Once you now that tape will play, attach a firewire connection (called iLink by Sony) between your camcorder and your computer and use standard video capture software to capture the output -> How to capture DV Cam using a firewire/DV card


Issues with the Capture using Digital8:

When I captured analog tapes with my Digital8 camcorder, I found that a got a thin line of distortion at the very bottom of my capture. The explanation that I got was:
"you're seeing the head switching. 8mm analog tapes are recorded using two heads on the drum and you're seeing the point at which the heads switch over. It's deliberately placed before the end of the picture so that the video is stable in the synchronising interval which follows on from it."

As pointed out, this distortion did NOT show on a TV during playback (because of overscanning). I could have left this distortion but I chose to put a black line over it using video editing software.




Capturing Various Analog Video (VHS, Hi8, 8mm) with a Digital Camcorder

Most (but not all) modern digital camcorders provide a analog-to-digital "passthrough" capability. This feature lets you feed an analog input signal (usually via S-Video, sometimes RCA) into your camcorder and output a standard DV AVI signal. The camcorder converts the analog signal on-the-fly using a hardware encoder. Your input device could be your old analog camcorder (playing 8mm or Hi8 tapes), a VHS video player, etc.

The DV AVI output signal is the same encoding as standard digital camcorder output so you can attach a firewire connection (also called iLink) between your camcorder and your computer and use standard video capture software to capture the output -> How to capture DV Cam using a firewire/DV card

Some digital camcorders do not support simple "passthrough" but they will capture an analog signal and convert it as you record to the digital tape. The digital tape can then be rewound and played over the firewire connection to computer as described above. Clearly, the passthrough capability saves time and effort but if you already have a digital camcorder (without passthrough), then you still might use the analog signal-to-tape capture capability.

Not all new digital camcorders necessary accept analog input (watch the lower-end models). If you have old analog material, then think about adding "analog-to-digital passthrough" to your list of requirements when choosing a digital camcorder.



Written by James Woodger

[Jedi27]

Hi Hojobey,

I forgot to mention that the 8mm isn't the Hi8/8mm/digital8. I may be using the wrong term...the 8 mm i'm referring to are the old (before VHS) spools which played on a projector. Typically, the smaller 2 inch spools only have 3 mins of footage on it. The projector looks very similar to a movie style projector as the tape wounds throughout it to play.

So, the reason why I need to get this fellow to do the cleaning and transferring is because I don't have a projector. It's at my parents place 8 hours away.

Sorry for the confusion. You are bang on about the pass through...that feature kicks butt!


Cheers,
Jedi 27

[jet757f]

I was wondering how you get the digital camcorder (mini DV) to start recording the tape. The digital camcorder is capturing the signal from my Hi8 camcorder but I cant figure out how to get it to start recording on the tape. How do I get it to do this???

[hoyboy]

If you are trying to record from an outside source to your miniDV camera, you have to make sure that the option is set up in the menu system ie enable av in etc, then make sure the DV camera is set to vcr mode, and there should be a record button somewhere on the camera with the other vcr function buttons. this is all it takes.

[sdlehman]

Here is a site you may be interested in. I would like to get something like this, just not in my budget right now. [www.moviestuff.com]
By the way, I captured hours of 8mm film with my digital 8 Sony camera by projecting on a small screen and recording with camera. I had to deflick and use a few other filters from Virtual Dub, but turned out pretty good.

Good luck,
Stace[/url]