We have a Sony Handycam camcorder that uses Hi-8 tapes. For those of you who aren’t familiar with them, they’re 8mm analog tapes – somewhat like a miniature VHS, but not quite. (There *was* a format called VHS-C that essentially was VHS)
My dad got a digital camcorder a few years ago, to keep up with the times, the kind that records straight to a memory card and can be burned to DVD easily.
But we have about 15 years of memories stored on the Hi-8 tapes and literally have entire boxes full of these. I’m trying to figure out the best way to convert them into digital format (DVD, most likely, as I doubt anything better makes sense).
I am fairly well versed in digital technology, I’ve made my own DVDs, and even Blu-Ray discs, so please don’t try to sell me software, I know what I’m doing. What I’d like to know is:
A. What sort of quality do "Digital8" camera give when playing analog Hi-8 tapes in them?
B. Is it better/worse/the same as DVD?
Currently, I have a Panasonic DVD recorder, that in "one hour mode", will record 480i (DVD standard) video from any standard-definition input source. Our Handycam (which still works fine) can use S-Video output and has the audio jacks, so what I’ve done for a few of the more important tapes was plug the camera into the recorder using S-Video and audio, then record it to a DVD.
The problem, of course, is that it’s fairly tedious and for anything longer than an hour, I have to split it up on two discs. Using "2-hour mode" on the recorder lowers quality by quite a lot, and it’s better to leave it at highest settings and use software to compress later.
That, and it’s interlaced, and often has tracking artifacts due to the age of the camera.
I have seen some of these Digital8 cameras for sale that can supposedly take Hi-8 tapes and automatically digitize them, and you can connect them to a computer using either FireWire or USB (both of which I can utilize), without needing to manually record each. But I have never done this, and it means paying for more equipment. Can anybody tell me what sort of quality can be expected using that method? Is it at least 480i at 30 frames per second like a DVD? If it were actually progressive (480p), that would be even nicer.
So given what I’ve said – that I already have a DVD recorder, what makes the most sense to convert a bunch of Hi-8 tapes to digital?
They do not need to be DVDs. I usually end up just converting the DVDs into de-interlaced video files on my computer anyway. I’m not too familiar with the "DV" standard, but supposedly it’s better quality than DVD? My question just concerns what resolution/framerate it uses and if it would look any better (or possibly worse!) than what I’m doing already.
PS – I was looking at buying one of these:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000087BV9/
It’s one of the cheapest Digital8 cameras I can find… does anybody know if that model can convert the tapes to digital or do I need more expensive one? Specific experience would be appreciated.
Thanks.
