Importing Sony Hi8 tapes

[chrislockerman]

This might not be the right forum, but I'm running FinalCut so... anyone have any thoughts on how to get Sony Hi8 tapes into the system???

[kylelewis1]

I have. I was easily able to do it by running my Hi8 camera into my digital cam (I have a backup MiniDV Sony cam) and run that into the computer. Good luck!

[chrislockerman]

So you kind of daisy chained the cameras together? Please explain further. Thanks.

[Capt Quirk]

Depends on what kind of outputs your camera has, and what kind of inputs your capture card has.

[VaricamLife]

I can one better you this one. I've been importing Sony Video 8 (aka standard 8) tapes. No timecode at all to work with. Its been great fun!

Best bet is if you can find a digital 8 camera or deck with firewire. There are a couple of options out there. The Sony TRV-800 camcorder can do the trick. Only deal is, no one in the USA has anymore for sale (probably because they could take any old video 8, hi 8 or digital 8 and firewire to your system, and for a decent price). But if you can find one used or through a friend, well, you're golden. The other option is a Sony walkman, and no not for audio casettes. Specifically look for the GV-D800. There are few of these still available around. Not cheap, but they'll do the job and then some. The 800 has an LCD with it. I think the 300 or 400 is the same deal but without the LCD (so will save you some $$$). Just research those and you'll find what you're looking for.

With the firewire option, then its just a standard firewire configuration in Final Cut Pro and you'll be off and running. Works great and you can maintain quality. If you start doing the daisy chains and the like you'll be dealing with RCA cables and well, even if you use Monster brand ones, you're still not dealing with a great choice there I'm afraid.

Additionally, with any one of the firewire options, you can also then hook up that device to a firewire mini-DV device. Record your Hi8 stuff off to DVCam and you can better archive it. Not that mini-DV is going to be around forever, but right now, you'll have a lot better chances of finding someone with a mini-DV capable device in another 10 years then you will finding someone with a Hi8 capable one.

Cheers.

[brinks]

Or you can just pick up a anolog to digital converter and just capture from your camera you have now. I want to say they are about $40 from a Fry's type electronics store

[chrislockerman]

Brinks, can you elaborate?

[chrislockerman]

Brinks, can you elaborate?

[VaricamLife]

Analog to digital convertor would allow you to firewire into FCP sure, but you'll still get hit with the quality loss because you're going to end up using RCA to go out from the Hi8 device. So might work, depending on what your quality demands are, but personally I wouldn't go that route.

Chris, you can grab an analog to digital convertor from nearly any major electronics store out there. Basically you would go analog OUT from your Hi8 device (your camera I assume is what you have) IN to the convertor device. From the convertor you could then, in theory, go firewire OUT from the convertor to IN on your computer. Then you can use FCP's firewire abilities. Though you may need to use "Non-controllable Device" for your Device Control setting as you're initially sending the footage out through the analog cables which don't have control capabilities. Basically the key here is make sure your Hi8 Device Out has a correpsonding IN on the convertor, and then make sure the convertor has a firewire Out.

cheers.

[kylelewis1]

As you can tell, there are many ways to do it. Basically, you need to find some way to convert the analog signal to a digital signal. Whether you do this by a converter, deck, or camcorder is up to you. I use what I have so that is why I converted with the camcorder.

My analog Hi8 camcorder has a regular a/v red/yellow output. My miniDV Sony cam has one of those inputs that looks like a headphone jack and takes the audio and video through that. But the other side of the cable is a regular A/V red/yellow cable. I attach my Hi8 to Minidv cam and tell the Minidv cam to go to input mode (instead of output, what it is usually used for to go to a TV). I then play the Hi8 and record it onto a MiniDV tape. The rest is normal capturing. Now there might be a way to run it directly into the computer instead of recording to DV first, but I hadn't figured out how to do so.

BTW, this is also how I capture VHS tapes when needed.