Digital 8 Firewire out?

[Tim Samaras]

Digital 8 users:

Can I put in a HI-8 tape in a Digital 8 camcorder, hit play... would the output come out digitally using the Firewire?

If the answer is yes, does anybody have a digital 8 camera for sale that can do this? Don't care about the camera portion.

I don't trust my old Sony CCD V701 anymore, and I want to get some of my older hilites digitized for this DVD I'm doing.

Thanks!
Tim

 

[Bill Hamilton]

I did it with my Sony DCR-TRV510. It imported the video without a problem. My parents had some HI-8 tapes with family stuff on it and wanted it put on a DVD.

 

[David Drummond]

Did the same on my old Sony 520 as well Tim. Even though I broke the optics, I am keeping it for an 8mm "deck" just because I have old tapes that haven't been digitized yet.

 

[Shane Adams]

If you're worried about straight hi-8 transfer quality, you can always record the hi-8 stuff onto digi-8, then firewire it in. I did this with all my old analog VHS/VHSc stuff.

 

[HankBaker]

Hi8-D-8

Tim, the answer to your question is yes. The only digital 8 models that were not capable of digital out put from Hi8 were the very first camera in the line, all the rest will transfer the Hi8 to a digital format. If your still not sure, let me know what the model is and I can tell you for sure.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Could probably quickly find one on ebay for very cheap to do that for ya. That or borrow one from Roger or Brad...given they are willing to do so.

 

[Tim Samaras]

Guys..

Many thanks for the replies.

I worked up a solution that pushed me to trust my old HI-8 camcorder, took the A/V and ran it to my FX-1. I plugged the firewire to my FX-1, and it provided real-time signal out!

The FX-1 basicly became an analog NTSC to firewire/digital converter!

I always hate borrowing somebody's camcorder to run 10 year-old tapes through it. It will be my luck that I'll break it, and then I'd have to fix it for them.

It was great to relive the Almena tornado, the wild Memorial day weekend of 1997, the early time March 25th, 1995 surprise in the TX panhandle, etc, etc...

Gads...when I was done, I loaded my HD with 140 GB of video!

:shock:

The hard part is...deciding on whats gonna go on the DVD....

Now...if I can only figure out this silly website stuff for thunderchase.com.....

Again, big thanks to those with help and suggestions!

Tim

 

[fplowman]

Originally posted by Tim Samaras
Guys..

Many thanks for the replies.

I worked up a solution that pushed me to trust my old HI-8 camcorder, took the A/V and ran it to my FX-1. I plugged the firewire to my FX-1, and it provided real-time signal out!

The FX-1 basicly became an analog NTSC to firewire/digital converter!

I always hate borrowing somebody's camcorder to run 10 year-old tapes through it. It will be my luck that I'll break it, and then I'd have to fix it for them.

It was great to relive the Almena tornado, the wild Memorial day weekend of 1997, the early time March 25th, 1995 surprise in the TX panhandle, etc, etc...

Gads...when I was done, I loaded my HD with 140 GB of video!

:shock:

The hard part is...deciding on whats gonna go on the DVD....

Now...if I can only figure out this silly website stuff for thunderchase.com.....

Again, big thanks to those with help and suggestions!

Tim

1 hour of AVI is roughly 13 gig Tim.. AVI or DV 25 is the raw compression ratio most (mini DV) digital cameras produce

Compress that footage to MPEG 2 and you can put about 4.7 gig or 2.5 hours or the equivilant of about maybe 30 + gig of AVI /DV 25. Hope that makes sense.

Tim .. let me know if i can help in anyway with the website.. I admin and create many. It is easy to set you up streaming your video as well..

 

[Tim Vasquez]

I just started doing Firewire transfers onto my new Firewire-enabled laptop and it transferred video flawlessly from a 4-year old Sony TRV-730. Right now I am capturing using WinDV, an extremely tiny but powerful program.

BTW "iLink" on Sony products & manuals is Firewire.

Also if you expect to do any editing/viewing of the resulting AVI/MPEG2 stream, you will want to install the tiny pdvcodec.zip codec... just do a search for it.

I noticed my camcorder has a USB output, too, but I can't imagine what it would be useful for.

Tim

 

[Doug_Kiesling]

1 hour of AVI is roughly 13 gig Tim.. AVI or DV 25 is the raw compression ratio most (mini DV) digital cameras produce

Compress that footage to MPEG 2 and you can put about 4.7 gig or 2.5 hours or the equivilant of about maybe 30 + gig of AVI /DV 25. Hope that makes sense.

True but I would not archive anything as Mpeg 2. Disk space is dirt cheap now and with 300 GB drives around $150, its worth it to save the video in the Raw AVI DV format. My editing system at home is pushing 4 terabytes just for the fact that the Mpeg format will lose video quality vs the AVI.

To answer your question about the older D8/Hi8 cameras, you can use them to pull in HI 8 videos just fine via Firewire. If you don't trust the camera, just go shoot some test video and if it works fine for the test video, it should work just fine for the older footage.

Its always best to digitized the footage ASAP and back it up. Tapes break as well as wear out over time.