hi-8 to Mini DV issue
 

I recently took some hi-8 footage and dumped to mini DV, (Sony VX3->DSR-11(borrowed) I wound up with a black line on the left side of the frame.

any ideas? I want to take some old Hi-8 convert to mini Dv so I have a timecoded master via firewire.

Not completely sure what happened, but do you see the line on your computer monitor while editing? If so then it will probably be in the overscan area on a normal TV and it won't be an issue. Try watching your footage on a TV and see what happens.

BTW... are you the same Bill Mecca that I know from NJPinebarrens.com? :-)

he he, I just responded to your response over there... yes, I am a full-fledged replica! :lol:

I noticed it on the trailer, it was on the computer screen. I wound up taking it into Aftereffects and beveling the edge to get rid of it. Haven't played it out to tape as I don't yet have a DV I/O on my home Avid. I'll hav e to borrow a deck to output.

Most of the the Sony Digital 8 cameras will do a direct in camera convert of Hi8 footage to DV for out put to the PC by firewire. In other words, using one of those, you would not need to use an AV output to your capture camera. I have never had that problem with using the Digital 8 to capture either Hi8 or 8mm video to the computer.

There was some discussion on this topic recently in another thread:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=69736

Thanks guys,

I prefer to dub to minidv to have a dv timecoded original for batch capture later.
I work with DVCAM in the day job and its just my workflow.

If I had to guess (which I am doing) I would have to suggest that your VX3 is transferring a video signal that uses something approximating the standard 'tv safe' area that is found on many analogue video media formats (like VHS), and as such, is not actually applying video coverage across the entire 720x480 dv frame, so you see a black line on the side where the hi-8 has not recorded a signal. If you converted a VHS tape into your dv NLE, you would likely see the same thing. You can either zoom and crop to fill the screen, or leave it along as the line will generally not be visible in the viewing area of a standard tv screen.

Another option is to digitize your hi-8 by using a D8 cam, such as the TRV-480, which reformats the signal in-cam into a dv signal, and I believe it will then fill up the entire dv viewing field....but don't quote me on that.

Hope this helps.
-Jon

I too suggest using the D8 to do this. IF you want a DV tape just output from the computer back to your DVCam deck afterwards. You will get a much better transfer. If your DVCam deck can record DV( the DSR11 will) set it that way and record from the D8 to the DVCam deck. I too have a VX3 but have found transfer using my Sony TRV740 is much better. The only problems I have encountered is that defective tapes will cause a blank in transfer wereas using analogue capture will just cause picture defects etc, only happened on a few very old tapes. I have transfered several hundred this way. Both these ways will give you time coded tapes. Make sure you use a D8 that can transfer 8 and Hi8 tapes, the first models in the Sony line cannot.

Ron Evans

Thanks all. I will be keeping my eyes peeled for a D8.

BTW, Ron, what kind of battery life do you get on your VX3? mine are aging and last virtually no time at all.

Now this is kinda funny... reading these two threads I was remembering how we used to shoot our opera archive videos on a hi-8 camera years ago and how cool I thought that was. Of course it was usually some intern or someone's girfriend running the camera on a shaky $30 tripod :-)

Well something came up today where I needed to make a bunch of copies of a show from 1998. I asked someone else to run one on VHS, but he did it in EP mode and the tape wouldn't play on the director's VCR. So since we're going to have to make several copies I decided to burn a DVD and then rip that copy on my computer to duplicate them.

Anyway, I'm sitting here now while it records, and it looks surprisingly clean for an old analog camcorder. I'm playing it on the same camera we recorded on, a Sony CCD-TR700. I have it hooked up to a Sony RDR-GX7 DVD recorder via s-video. The recorder has a number of controls to help with analog recording like noise reduction, brightness and contrast settings, etc. After tweaking these I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised!

But it's funny because I never imagined I'd be copying old Hi-8 tapes to DVD's when I responded to this thread yesterday!

Hi8 to miniDV
 

I mentioned this on another thread, but I've had very good results transferring Hi8 to DV using the Canopus ADVC-300 convertor. I fed the Hi8 out through the S-video connector on the Hi8 camcorder, into the ADVC-300, then the DV out into either a DV camcorder or a computer. The convertor doesn't coorect all problems with bad Hi8, but it does significantly clean up some older tapes.