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Gear / Technical Help => Photo / Video Recording => Topic started by: Charlie Miller on September 06, 2017, 08:03:50 PM
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I have about 50 Hi-8 masters that need to be transferred. What is the best way for me to do this? Rob Eaton offered to transfer the tapes but his deck's firewire output crapped out. I need to get these transferred and also capture the audio in the highest quality possible. I figured I could take an analog audio out and go from there.
Any input is appreciated
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Do you have the Hi 8 deck?
I have the rest of the chain but no Hi 8 deck.
PM me with details .
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You don't want to go analog out you need to digitize these thru something like a Canopus standalone or a Sony mini dv deck or cam that has ADC pass thru.All of these methods need FireWire and you'll need WinDv or similar capture program on your computer....look out for dropped frames .
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Do you have the Hi 8 deck?
I have the rest of the chain but no Hi 8 deck.
PM me with details .
I have nothing but the tapes. The analog out part was just about the audio. If the audio can be captured digitally, that would be great. But yeah, the video part is important too.
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http://videotransferboston.com/8mm-hi8-and-digital8/
Information about the three 8mm formats....it's possible these may be digital 8
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http://videotransferboston.com/8mm-hi8-and-digital8/
Information about the three 8mm formats....it's possible these may be digital 8
Thanks but that would cost over $1,000, unless I misread it.
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Bunch of decent camcorders on eBay for around 50$ :shrug:
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Bunch of decent camcorders on eBay for around 50$ :shrug:
Yeah I saw that. Thing is I know nothing about video and don't know what I need.
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Video 8/Hi-8/Digital 8 are very sensitive on playback, especially as they age. The sound quality and picture quality can vary dramatically depending on the player used to play them back. The tracking is also very delicate so some tapes don't play well in some (or even most) machines.
To do it right is time consuming and often trial and error even with good machines. The stand alone Sony players are the best but there's a lot of variation among them. The more expensive ones definitely give better results but due to the iterations in development of the original technology not all tapes play best on any one generation of machine IME.
I'm not sure camcorder playback is too good an idea unless its the same one they were recorded on.
Good luck. If they're really of value and worth doing right it's a big project.
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Charlie, give me a call. I have a buddy that that has a Canopus and a Sony HI8
Keith
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Video 8/Hi-8/Digital 8 are very sensitive on playback, especially as they age. The sound quality and picture quality can vary dramatically depending on the player used to play them back. The tracking is also very delicate so some tapes don't play well in some (or even most) machines.
To do it right is time consuming and often trial and error even with good machines. The stand alone Sony players are the best but there's a lot of variation among them. The more expensive ones definitely give better results but due to the iterations in development of the original technology not all tapes play best on any one generation of machine IME.
I'm not sure camcorder playback is too good an idea unless its the same one they were recorded on.
Good luck. If they're really of value and worth doing right it's a big project.
Good to know. Thanks
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Video 8/Hi-8/Digital 8 are very sensitive on playback, especially as they age. The sound quality and picture quality can vary dramatically depending on the player used to play them back. The tracking is also very delicate so some tapes don't play well in some (or even most) machines.
To do it right is time consuming and often trial and error even with good machines. The stand alone Sony players are the best but there's a lot of variation among them. The more expensive ones definitely give better results but due to the iterations in development of the original technology not all tapes play best on any one generation of machine IME.
I'm not sure camcorder playback is too good an idea unless its the same one they were recorded on.
Good luck. If they're really of value and worth doing right it's a big project.
I am in the process of transferring and authoring to DVD thousands of tapes for a guy who started filming shows back in the 1980s (and is still regularly filming shows now but switched away from 8mm when mini-DV became available and shoots in HD now). I have captured around 500 shows from 8mm tapes (all three varieties) so far using two cameras (Sony DCR-TRV350 Digital8 & Sony DCR-TRV730 Digital8). I go straight from the camera via firewire to a firewire card in my work station capturing with Sony Vegas Video Pro 13. I can't remember the last time I had a dropped frame - it's extremely rare. The three videocams he shot with on 8mm were Ricoh R-600 (same specs as Sony CCD-V5), Sony TR-101 Hi8, and Sony TR-5.
One thing I always do is rewind/fast forward the tapes from end to end before I capture them since 99% of the time they have sat untouched since the time they were recorded. I do that with a Kinyo 2-Way 8mm Tape Rewinder to save wear and tear on my video cams.
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^holy nuts. nice effort man! :coolguy:
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Video 8/Hi-8/Digital 8 are very sensitive on playback, especially as they age. The sound quality and picture quality can vary dramatically depending on the player used to play them back. The tracking is also very delicate so some tapes don't play well in some (or even most) machines.
To do it right is time consuming and often trial and error even with good machines. The stand alone Sony players are the best but there's a lot of variation among them. The more expensive ones definitely give better results but due to the iterations in development of the original technology not all tapes play best on any one generation of machine IME.
I'm not sure camcorder playback is too good an idea unless its the same one they were recorded on.
Good luck. If they're really of value and worth doing right it's a big project.
I am in the process of transferring and authoring to DVD thousands of tapes for a guy who started filming shows back in the 1980s (and is still regularly filming shows now but switched away from 8mm when mini-DV became available and shoots in HD now). I have captured around 500 shows from 8mm tapes (all three varieties) so far using two cameras (Sony DCR-TRV350 Digital8 & Sony DCR-TRV730 Digital8). I go straight from the camera via firewire to a firewire card in my work station capturing with Sony Vegas Video Pro 13. I can't remember the last time I had a dropped frame - it's extremely rare. The three videocams he shot with on 8mm were Ricoh R-600 (same specs as Sony CCD-V5), Sony TR-101 Hi8, and Sony TR-5.
One thing I always do is rewind/fast forward the tapes from end to end before I capture them since 99% of the time they have sat untouched since the time they were recorded. I do that with a Kinyo 2-Way 8mm Tape Rewinder to save wear and tear on my video cams.
right on!!
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I am in the process of transferring and authoring to DVD thousands of tapes for a guy who started filming shows back in the 1980s (and is still regularly filming shows now but switched away from 8mm when mini-DV became available and shoots in HD now). I have captured around 500 shows from 8mm tapes (all three varieties) so far using two cameras (Sony DCR-TRV350 Digital8 & Sony DCR-TRV730 Digital8). I go straight from the camera via firewire to a firewire card in my work station capturing with Sony Vegas Video Pro 13. I can't remember the last time I had a dropped frame - it's extremely rare. The three videocams he shot with on 8mm were Ricoh R-600 (same specs as Sony CCD-V5), Sony TR-101 Hi8, and Sony TR-5.
One thing I always do is rewind/fast forward the tapes from end to end before I capture them since 99% of the time they have sat untouched since the time they were recorded. I do that with a Kinyo 2-Way 8mm Tape Rewinder to save wear and tear on my video cams.
Cool. That's nice it's working well.
I've got thousands more and not really the patience/time/discipline if you're game after those are done.
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I have also transferred 35 old tapes to digital. Think i still have the old camera in the box with the tapes. It takes awhile but it's straight forward. I would guess your best bet is to purchase a camcorder on ebay and try it yourself. Really rewarding to have digital copies. I transferred all of our old baby videos, my adult kids just love them now.
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I forget the Sony Camcorder model number that I used, but all I've ever done is transfer the hi-8 tape from the camcorder to my PC over firewire. Would there be much room for improvement transferring the video over a canopus or other similar setup. I've always assumed that the transfer from the camcorder was pretty much as good as it was likely to get because the original recordings just weren't that great to start with, but am I being mistaken?
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I forget the Sony Camcorder model number that I used, but all I've ever done is transfer the hi-8 tape from the camcorder to my PC over firewire. Would there be much room for improvement transferring the video over a canopus or other similar setup. I've always assumed that the transfer from the camcorder was pretty much as good as it was likely to get because the original recordings just weren't that great to start with, but am I being mistaken?
I've used both methods quite a bit and have never noticed any difference. Having said that - going straight from the video cam to the computer via firewire (known as analog to digital pass-through) only requires one connection (the firewire cable). Going from a videocam to the Canopus requires RCA cables, and then from the Canopus to the computer requires a firewire. So it stands to reason that you're increasing your chances for problems to occur if you use a set up that requires two connections vs one connection.
And on a related note - if you're in the market for a used digital 8mm cam that has analog to digital pass-through - be aware - some have it and some don't. And there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of rhyme or reason in terms of some model numbers in a series having it and others not having it, i.e., the DCR-TRV 240 has it, the DCR-TRV 260 may not have it, but the DCR-TRV 280 has it. Unless you already know for a fact that a particular model number has it, make sure you ask the person selling the cam if it has analog to digital pass-through.
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Thanks.
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I forget the Sony Camcorder model number that I used, but all I've ever done is transfer the hi-8 tape from the camcorder to my PC over firewire. Would there be much room for improvement transferring the video over a canopus or other similar setup. I've always assumed that the transfer from the camcorder was pretty much as good as it was likely to get because the original recordings just weren't that great to start with, but am I being mistaken?
I've used both methods quite a bit and have never noticed any difference. Having said that - going straight from the video cam to the computer via firewire (known as analog to digital pass-through) only requires one connection (the firewire cable). Going from a videocam to the Canopus requires RCA cables, and then from the Canopus to the computer requires a firewire. So it stands to reason that you're increasing your chances for problems to occur if you use a set up that requires two connections vs one connection.
I'm very interested in this topic because I've just inherited about 40 8mm videocam tapes to convert for viewing on computer.
So far in my researching I've learned that the analog-to-digital pass through method encodes your old video8 & Hi* tapes (in real time) to a lossy DV (Digital8) format for export which unfortunately discards much of the color information especially for NTSC tapes (4.1.1):
Color Subsampling, or What is 4:4:4 or 4:2:2??
http://blogs.adobe.com/VideoRoad/2010/06/color_subsampling_or_what_is_4.html
Since most of the tapes I have are in excellent condition I think it is worth the extra effort to preserve the colors. I went ahead and bought one of those tiny USB capture devices (Diamond VC500) and am in the process of setting up a computer for capturing.
And on a related note - if you're in the market for a used digital 8mm cam that has analog to digital pass-through - be aware - some have it and some don't. And there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of rhyme or reason in terms of some model numbers in a series having it and others not having it, i.e., the DCR-TRV 240 has it, the DCR-TRV 260 may not have it, but the DCR-TRV 280 has it. Unless you already know for a fact that a particular model number has it, make sure you ask the person selling the cam if it has analog to digital pass-through.
This guy put together an extensive list of Camera's that have firewire ports that will encode and export analog Video8 and Hi8 tapes to DV (Digital8) via the firewire port:
Digitizing Video8 and Hi8 recordings
https://tdb0.wordpress.com/2015/01/31/digitizing-video8-and-hi8-recordings/
These two forums have tons of information:
https://forum.videohelp.com/
http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/
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So far in my researching I've learned that the analog-to-digital pass through method encodes your old video 8 & Hi8 tapes (in real time) to a lossy DV (Digital8) format for export which unfortunately discards much of the color information especially for NTSC tapes (4.1.1):
I don't think the analog-to-digital pass through encodes video - it just captures the raw analog video from the tape and converts it to digital. And DV is as you said - a lossy format. But that's all you're going to be able to get off of a regular 8mm tape. It is possible to artificially bloat it out to uncompressed video after you capture it, but that's like taking an mp3 and saving it as a wave file. Compressed digital video you capture from an 8mm tape is around 13GBs per hour of video. Where as uncompressed digital video is much, much larger. It's really only used in movie studios and it's something like 33GB per minute of video.
So don't worry about losing color in the capture process - because it's already lost.
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So far in my researching I've learned that the analog-to-digital pass through method encodes your old video 8 & Hi8 tapes (in real time) to a lossy DV (Digital8) format for export which unfortunately discards much of the color information especially for NTSC tapes (4.1.1):
I don't think the analog-to-digital pass through encodes video - it just captures the raw analog video from the tape and converts it to digital. And DV is as you said - a lossy format. But that's all you're going to be able to get off of a regular 8mm tape. It is possible to artificially bloat it out to uncompressed video after you capture it, but that's like taking an mp3 and saving it as a wave file. Compressed digital video you capture from an 8mm tape is around 13GBs per hour of video. Where as uncompressed digital video is much, much larger. It's really only used in movie studios and it's something like 33GB per minute of video.
So don't worry about losing color in the capture process - because it's already lost.
Yeah I was wondering about that. Why would adding an analog step in the digital transfer make it better? Thanks for clarifying
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So far in my researching I've learned that the analog-to-digital pass through method encodes your old video 8 & Hi8 tapes (in real time) to a lossy DV (Digital8) format for export which unfortunately discards much of the color information especially for NTSC tapes (4.1.1):
I don't think the analog-to-digital pass through encodes video - it just captures the raw analog video from the tape and converts it to digital. And DV is as you said - a lossy format. But that's all you're going to be able to get off of a regular 8mm tape. It is possible to artificially bloat it out to uncompressed video after you capture it, but that's like taking an mp3 and saving it as a wave file. Compressed digital video you capture from an 8mm tape is around 13GBs per hour of video. Where as uncompressed digital video is much, much larger. It's really only used in movie studios and it's something like 33GB per minute of video.
So don't worry about losing color in the capture process - because it's already lost.
Yeah I was wondering about that. Why would adding an analog step in the digital transfer make it better? Thanks for clarifying
The colors are "already lost" only if your tapes are Digital8.
OP has analog Video8 & Hi8 tapes.
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Digital8 cameras are the ones with firewire ports because it was a new digital format Sony was pushing and they wanted to make it easy for people to transfer Digital8 video to their computer.
Digital8 = lossy DV encoded video
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital8
Understand that the only thing that ever comes out of that firewire port is lossy DV encoded video (easily verified with VLC codec information), which tosses away 75% of the color for each pixel.
(from previous post)
Color Subsampling, or What is 4:4:4 or 4:2:2??
http://blogs.adobe.com/VideoRoad/2010/06/color_subsampling_or_what_is_4.html
The OP wants to transfer Video8 and Hi8 tapes which are an older analog format which potentially have more color than the newer lossy Digital8/DV format.
For backward compatiblity some Digital8 cameras can also play older analog Video8 and Hi8 tapes. But Analog Video8 and Hi8 tapes will lose color (see adobe link above) when you transfer using the firewire port because the Digital8 camera ENCODES the analog Video8 or Hi8 video to lossy DV/Digital8 for transfer.
Luckily, Digital8 cameras also have the familiar analog composite video and S-video connections for connecting the camera to a TV.
People who want to preserve the colors of their analog Video8 & Hi8 tapes use the S-Video output into a capture card instead of the firewire port.
The analog connections preserve all of the color of analog tapes when capturing.
Interestingly, the color of Digital8 taped video coming out of these older analog connections will be limited by the lossy DV codec since Digital8=DV
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Luckily, Digital8 cameras also have the familiar analog composite video and S-video connections for connecting the camera to a TV.
People who want to preserve the colors of their analog Video8 & Hi8 tapes use the S-Video output into a capture card instead of the firewire port.
The analog connections preserve all of the color of analog tapes when capturing.
I've done it both ways many hundreds of times and don't see any difference at all in the colors.
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I've transferred a few hundred 8mm/Hi8/Digital 8 cassettes. For any analog tapes that wouldn't playback nice (A/D conversion) through my Sony Digital 8 TRV-230 I would use another 8mm analog camcorder - composite outputs into my standalone JVC deck (http://support.jvc.com/consumer/product.jsp?modelId=MODL026939) that performs the analog to DV pass-thru and then firewire to PC (Vegas 13). Never have I experienced any dropped frames with that method.
When doing the pass through method via analog connections, picture quality will depend upon the playback deck.
If you're in the market for a Sony Digital 8 camcorder that performs the A/D conversion, here's a list of models "said" to support that feature:
The models of Sony Digital8 camcorder that are capable of both digital and analog playback include these models:
DCR-TR7000 (1999)
DCR-TRV103 (1998)
DCR-TRV110 (playback of Hi8 and video8 in SP/LP but record and playback of Digital8 in SP only)
DCR-TRV120 (2000)
DCR-TRV230 (2001)
DCR-TRV238
DCR-TRV239 (2002)
DCR-TRV240 (2002)
DCR-TRV310 (1999)
DCR-TRV320 (2000)
DCR-TRV330 (2001)
DCR-TRV340 (2002)
DCR-TRV345
DCR-TRV350 (2003)
DCR-TRV351 (2003)
DCR-TRV355
DCR-TRV356
DCR-TRV410 (1999)
DCR-TRV420 (2000)
DCR-TRV480 (2005)
DCR-TRV510 (1999)
DCR-TRV520 (2000)
DCR-TRV530 (2001)
DCR-TRV620 (2000)
DCR-TRV720 (2000)
DCR-TRV730 (2001)
DCR-TRV740 (2002)
DCR-TRV820 (2000)
DCR-TRV830 (2001)
DCR-TRV838 (2001)
DCR-TRV840 (2002)
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im sitting on around 300-400 sony digital8 tapes, taped on a sony trv120 and trv320.
any suggestions on a reliable place to pick up a used deck for transfer?
ive seen a few on the ebay, but a lil nervous to drop the dough
just a few from when i tried to keep track of them http://db.etree.org/sciphotoman
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im sitting on around 300-400 sony digital8 tapes, taped on a sony trv120 and trv320.
any suggestions on a reliable place to pick up a used deck for transfer?
ive seen a few on the ebay, but a lil nervous to drop the dough
You could try Craigslist, Marketplace (Facebook Classifieds) or any other local classified means which would allow yo to look before buying! I'd say the decks average around $100.
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Could try a pawn shop but hi-8 is so old that they may not be taking them in much anymore.
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Could try a pawn shop but hi-8 is so old that they may not be taking them in much anymore.
If you're replying to Justy Gyee, a hi-8 wouldn't do him any good, as he said he shot his tapes with a digital 8 cam. He probably wouldn't want a hi-8 cam anyway, because that would require an analog-to-digital conversion box in between the cam and the capture device. A digital 8 cam with analog-to-digital pass through would make a lot more sense.
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im sitting on around 300-400 sony digital8 tapes, taped on a sony trv120 and trv320.
any suggestions on a reliable place to pick up a used deck for transfer?
ive seen a few on the ebay, but a lil nervous to drop the dough
just a few from when i tried to keep track of them http://db.etree.org/sciphotoman
Two years ago I bought a Sony digital-8 cam that had analog-to-digital pass through on eBay for $29. The main reason for the low price was that the flip-out screen didn't work. But I figured I didn't need a functioning screen - just a camera with a firewire connection that would playback tapes. I asked the owner if it functioned otherwise and if the firewire connection was good, and he confirmed that other than the screen, it functioned well. Worked out really well for me.
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I bought a Digital 8 DCR-TRV320 new back in 2000, and filmed local and some national acts on it until a tape shortage started happening in 2011, then I jumped to HD. That cam was sitting around until a friend asked to borrow it to convert some tapes. He somehow messed it up and had it cleaned.
I had misplaced some audio recordings and new the video tapes had a source I could use, so I was going to play them back and capture the audio, but those tapes wouldn't play. So I had the camera cleaned again, and against his advice I tried playing one of those tapes in the newly cleaned cam, f'd up again!!
So I started trolling Ebay a couple weeks ago, and pulled the trigger on a Digital 8 DCR-TRV280, using the firewire cable into my XP machine, capturing with Nero 6 to .mpg files.
I went thru quite a few conversions with the new cam, but i'm at a stand still, since I have crappy internet at home to upload to YouTube (the T1 at work does wonders, but not really working at the moment).
Anything you convert from HI 8 isn't gonna be HD quality, but as long as you're happy with how it looks, and you can up it or burn to DVD, it should be fine.
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using the firewire cable into my XP machine, capturing with Nero 6 to .mpg files.
You're capturing the video as MPEG? That means Nero 6 must be encoding on the fly to MPEG. Normally, you would capture raw standard def video (.avi file) and encode that to MPEG.
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Isn’t mpeg lossy?
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Isn’t mpeg lossy?
Yes.
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Isn’t mpeg lossy?
Yes, but it's the standard format for standard definition DVDs. As long as you encode the raw video properly and don't stretch it out too far (time-wise), it should look just fine.
My concern with encoding on the fly is that unlike a 2-pass encoding where during the first pass the encoder analyzes the video and then encodes on the second pass thereby allotting the most appropriate bit rate when necessary (high bit rate during active scenes and low bit rate during less active scenes) - the encoder isn't able to do that with a single-pass on-the-fly encoding. And that can make a huge difference in video quality.
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Isn’t mpeg lossy?
Yes, but it's the standard format for standard definition DVDs. As long as you encode the raw video properly and don't stretch it out too far (time-wise), it should look just fine.
My concern with encoding on the fly is that unlike a 2-pass encoding where during the first pass the encoder analyzes the video and then encodes on the second pass thereby allotting the most appropriate bit rate when necessary (high bit rate during active scenes and low bit rate during less active scenes) - the encoder isn't able to do that with a single-pass on-the-fly encoding. And that can make a huge difference in video quality.
I never knew DVD was lossy. Is blu-ray lossy?
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Isn’t mpeg lossy?
Yes, but it's the standard format for standard definition DVDs. As long as you encode the raw video properly and don't stretch it out too far (time-wise), it should look just fine.
My concern with encoding on the fly is that unlike a 2-pass encoding where during the first pass the encoder analyzes the video and then encodes on the second pass thereby allotting the most appropriate bit rate when necessary (high bit rate during active scenes and low bit rate during less active scenes) - the encoder isn't able to do that with a single-pass on-the-fly encoding. And that can make a huge difference in video quality.
I never knew DVD was lossy. Is blu-ray lossy?
All common video codecs that are used in everyday life (including concert recordings trading, sharing) are all lossy! VCD is MPEG1, DVD is MPEG2, BD is MPEG2/H264/WMV as codecs used for compressing for the video. DV codec that used by miniDV and Digital8 camcorders is another lossy, but less compressed format. Digital tv broadcasts use h264 and MPEG2 codecs which are lossy too. I'm talking about codecs, not containers (such as avi, vob, mpg, mkv, ts, m2ts)!
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Isn’t mpeg lossy?
Yes, but it's the standard format for standard definition DVDs. As long as you encode the raw video properly and don't stretch it out too far (time-wise), it should look just fine.
My concern with encoding on the fly is that unlike a 2-pass encoding where during the first pass the encoder analyzes the video and then encodes on the second pass thereby allotting the most appropriate bit rate when necessary (high bit rate during active scenes and low bit rate during less active scenes) - the encoder isn't able to do that with a single-pass on-the-fly encoding. And that can make a huge difference in video quality.
I never knew DVD was lossy. Is blu-ray lossy?
All common video codecs that are used in everyday life (including concert recordings trading, sharing) are all lossy! VCD is MPEG1, DVD is MPEG2, BD is MPEG2/H264/WMV as codecs used for compressing for the video. DV codec that used by miniDV and Digital8 camcorders is another lossy, but less compressed format. Digital tv broadcasts use h264 and MPEG2 codecs which are lossy too. I'm talking about codecs, not containers (such as avi, vob, mpg, mkv, ts, m2ts)!
Thanks for the info. I have watched about 20 minutes of video on youtube over the years, but that's about it. I'm just an audio guy. Don't really care to watch unless I'm there.
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The guy to talk to in regards to Grateful Dead video is Kevin Tobin. Kevin and myself were founding members of DVDead several years ago and he's still active in transferring tapes. AMOF, I believe he used my audio for the Fare Thee Well shows. lol Any hoot, I have his email address. PM me if you're interested.
https://www.youtube.com/user/BrokedownHouseProd
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The guy to talk to in regards to Grateful Dead video is Kevin Tobin. Kevin and myself were founding members of DVDead several years ago and he's still active in transferring tapes. AMOF, I believe he used my audio for the Fare Thee Well shows. lol Any hoot, I have his email address. PM me if you're interested.
https://www.youtube.com/user/BrokedownHouseProd
kevin and I go way back. great guy, but I can't send these tapes out to anyone. I'm all set now. thanks again.
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There´s also an option to convert the Hi8-cassettes in High Quality AVI = which will be close to Blu-Ray-video files. (90 min. approx = 15-20 GB)
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I sent the tapes to Kevin Tobin last year. we've been releasing them as they're done.
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There´s also an option to convert the Hi8-cassettes in High Quality AVI = which will be close to Blu-Ray-video files. (90 min. approx = 15-20 GB)
Well, if you can find a Digital8 camcorder, you can use the firewire output to transfer it to a PC and it will encode the video as DV-AVI (25Mbps) - same bitrate as a miniDV or Digital8 video. This works out to be about 13GB an hour. This video will then need to be re-encoded into a playable (disc or media player) format.
If you don't have a Digial8 camcorder, you can plug your Hi-8 camcorder into an external device like an Canopus/Grass Valley ADVC-110. It will also convert it into the DV-AVI format at 25Mbps.