Topic: Hi8 camera help!

[shhhshhh]

I was given an old Hi8 camera for free from one of my buddies. The camera turns on alright, but i get nothing but blackness when recording. I've even tried pointing it at the sun and it doesn't pick up anything. The zoom appears not to be working as well. Any idea whats causing this? Im pretty sure its unfixable, but you never know. Plus, im curious as to what causes this "blacker than the blackest black times infinity" problem. 

[stantheman1976]

Do you hear sound when you play back what you tried to record?  Sounds like the lens is messed up internally.  My old JVC MiniDv camera got dropped when I let my wife use it and it knocked the lens out of place so it records only black but the sound still comes through.  Ask the guy if it was ever dropped.

[shhhshhh]

Do you hear sound when you play back what you tried to record?  Sounds like the lens is messed up internally.  My old JVC MiniDv camera got dropped when I let my wife use it and it knocked the lens out of place so it records only black but the sound still comes through.  Ask the guy if it was ever dropped.

I haven't tried sound yet, but im assuming it works. I did ask him if he dropped it awhile ago and he said he couldn't remember.
Is it possible to fix this or is it a junker?

[stantheman1976]

The lens could just be knocked loose but I wouldn't open a camera unless I knew what I was doing.  If there are any places near you that repair cameras I'd check there.  It all depends on how much it's worth to you.  If you just need a video camera and don't need top notch quality you can get a decent MiniDV cam from Wal Mart for a couple hundred dollars.  Hi8 is an old technology.

[shhhshhh]

The lens could just be knocked loose but I wouldn't open a camera unless I knew what I was doing.  If there are any places near you that repair cameras I'd check there.  It all depends on how much it's worth to you.  If you just need a video camera and don't need top notch quality you can get a decent MiniDV cam from Wal Mart for a couple hundred dollars.  Hi8 is an old technology.

It's worth no more than $20 to me. If I could replace it for free, I would. Currently I only own a VHS-C camera (which has very undependable picture quality. sometimes it looks great, sometimes it might as well be no video at all) and an upgrade on any sort would be great. Hi8 was interesting for me due to the 120 minutes of video per-tape thing. I am looking into a cheap ($150) MiniDV camera for some time into the future though just for the ability to transfer the video digitally.

[stantheman1976]

You can still fit 90 minutes on a MiniDV tape.  The information is just spaced closer together on the tape and a few cameras would have trouble reading a tape recorded in LP from another camera.

[guitard]

Maybe this is a post for a different thread...but...

I live in a fairly large city (has NFL, MLB, and NHL teams)...and recently tried to get repair work done on a videocamera.  I could only find three places listed in the yellow pages.  The first one I went to ~ they were never open.  Even though it looked like they were still in business.  But it looked like they were mainly a video duplication business anyway.  The second one answered the phone and said to bring it on by - but I went twice during business hours - and both times no one was there - and the place was way out of my way.  The last one...finally found it...only to find they had moved.  Went to the new location - and nothing was there.

Point being...finding someone to do repair work done in some towns seems to really be hard.

[stantheman1976]

Yes, mainly I believe because it's a more specialized thing.  Most people who have cameras expensive enough to warrant a repair are going to trust only a handful of others.  In most cases they'll have a warranty or send it to the main company to repaired or replaced by their techs.  Most normal consumers will just go spend a few hundred dollars on a camera at Wal Mart or Best Buy and be satisfied with that. 

[beatkilla]

Are you sure the lens cover is open or removed?

[Church-Audio]

If this camera plays back ok and has a firewire port I would be interested in buying it from you as I need to do a transfer of some tapes... about 50 of them into my computer. Do you guys think DIVX is the way to go for converting them so I can store mass amounts on a single dvd? or do you have a better compression format I should be using I dont know anything about video...

Sorry for the thread hijack

[guitard]

If this camera plays back ok and has a firewire port I would be interested in buying it from you as I need to do a transfer of some tapes... about 50 of them into my computer. Do you guys think DIVX is the way to go for converting them so I can store mass amounts on a single dvd? or do you have a better compression format I should be using I dont know anything about video...

Sorry for the thread hijack

Chris,

I think it's kind of like asking should I archive this audio in .wav or .mp3?  If it's something you just want to archive and have a digital copy of, divx is probably good enough.  But archiving it and encoding to mpeg2 (DVD standard) isn't any extra work to speak of.

And if you have some Hi8 tapes, you could use a digital 8mm cam and it will do the digital conversion for you.  I mention this because you can get a used digital 8mm for the same price as a used Hi8 these days, so you might as well go with a digital 8mm cam.