Hi8 and 8mm transfer to digital: Beginner Questions

[kcmom]

Quote:

You have to author before burning. DVDWS2 is highly suggested. TMPGEnc Authoring Works is another one. For free options, Simple DVD Creator works nicely. Each of these has a bit of a learning curve, but that's why you're a forum member. Plus we have some guides for these already, so search the site (use the search function).

I think I read on this site that DVDWS2 has to run in XP mode. Is that possible with Windows7 Home Premium?

[jmac698]

AVI can represent a lot of formats internally, while MPEG is it's own format, so that's a loaded question. However, I can safely say that a certain setting of AVI will be better quality. The format you capture in is important, because you want to keep quality while editing. For this you need to learn how to choose HuffyUV as the AVI compression setting.

In Virtual Dub, it's listed under video->compression or press C in capture mode, but you also need the HuffyUV software installed first.
Try http://www.videohelp.com/tools/HuffYUV

We call HuffyUV a "lossless" format for AVI's.

One tradeoff to using this level of quality, is that it takes a lot of space. Expect 50GB disk space free for every 1 hour.

I think it's important to use appropriate brightness and contrast settings while capturing. If you don't set these correctly, important detail of your images will be lost forever in the file. (The tape still has them, I just mean if you mess up, you'd have to capture again).

Select video->histogram to show the graph.
Select video->levels to bring up the levels controls.
Play the tape, and find a spot with dark video if possible.
Adjust the brightness slider so that the left side of the graph starts by the left shaded area.
Adjust the contrast to move the right side of the graph to the right area.

I just tried this myself. I found that the histogram graph didn't display unless I chose video->Preview.
Also the graph shows blue in the good area and red in the bad area. I had one tiny line of red but that's ok. The video was dark and I moved the contrast slider, then the video looked good and the whole graph was filled.

I might mention that a part of the video with a lamp or bright sky should be used when adjusting contrast.

I'm sure you can understand the point here, to fully expand the darkest and brightest possible video parts to use the full available range that the capture card can record. This gives good precision without losing any detail in dark or bright areas.

If you've taught math, I'm sure you know what a histogram from statistics is. You technically want your histogram to range from 16 to 235. That's where the red areas end.

[kcmom]

Thank you this is very helpful .

I have recently downloaded the HuffYUV and will try what you said as soon as I can. I will try capturing small samples until I get this figured out. Do I need to change these settings with each individual tape, or with each type of tape (8mm, Hi8)? Still waiting about a month for next payday before buying better video capture card or any software. (Currently playing aound with Diamond VC500 capture device inherited from a friend.) I appreciate all the advice I can get!

[jmac698]

I can offer a theoretical guess here - that the tapes made in the same camera won't need an adjustment of the levels. Perhaps there is something slightly different between 8mm and hi8. Anyhow, if there's a big difference you will see it visually - both by the look of the video, and by keeping the histogram running. You will see if the next tape starts going over the limits. In my experience, the differences are minimal. And if it's literally a light bulb pinging the graph, I wouldn't bother redoing the whole tape. It's the spots with a brightly lit face that I would care about, I don't want them to look washed out.

Which brings me to another point, monitoring the process is important, besides it will be fun to watch, and during this time you can also write down the spots you'd like to edit later. You can go by the big clock on the right-hand side. Always start from a certain place on the tape like the exact beginning or just before the clip you want to start at, and click "start capture" before playing the tape to give your computer time to start going.*

One other tip, you may notice spots where the image is washed out, even though you've set your histogram correctly. In that case, it was the problem of the camcorder originally trying to adapt to a change in brightness. As you gain experience you'll learn to interpret the different kinds of levels. This problem is part of the recording and you're not capturing it wrong.

Good luck, let us know how it goes.

*I learned this the hard way, it turns out my hard drive had "fallen asleep" and it takes a good 10 seconds to warm up, meanwhile VirtualDub was frozen and my show was starting.

[Zerowalker]

Can anyone tell me which 8mm camcorders with S-video transfer with true S-video?
Not crosstalk or anything like that, but pure S-Video.

I am trying to get one, and as another one here is doing some job with it, i thought i would ask here

[kcmom]

Is this one of the cards you recommend?
ATI TV Wonder HD 600 USB Digital and Analog TV Tuner with Remote Control

If so, what problems could exist buying used?

[admin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kcmom

Is this one of the cards you recommend? ATI TV Wonder HD 600 USB Digital and Analog TV Tuner with Remote Control

Yes, that ATI 600 card is recommended. So much so, in fact, that I auto-linked the term "ATI 600" to the Amazon page where you can buy it. (Though sold on eBay, be wary of completeness -- lots of them are missing important parts.) I see Amazon currently has one used for $45 shipped from the seller, and that should be a good deal. Or $100 for the new-in-box ones from other sellers.

Quote:

If so, what problems could exist buying used?

Missing parts, item is broken, etc. But the same danger exists for new items, too. I buy used gear all the time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kcmom

so I think I am beginning to get it...after capture, I can author with DVDWS2 and burn with Imgburn...does this sound correct?

Correct.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zerowalker

I can easily say that AVI (as in lossless) is beating mpeg by Far, even if you were to encode to MPEG afterwards (as you can 2 pass etc). If i were you i would go with AVI, meaning Virtualdub or other capturing software that allow your choice of codec.

AVI and MPEG-2 are different, nothing more, nothing less. Lossless Huffyuv AVI is not necessarily better than MPEG-2 in all workflows. The biggest issue with MPEG encoding is the quality of the encoder, and the content being recorded, which is why many people falsely believe "AVI is always better". The decision between choosing AVI or MPEG-2 for capturing is based on several criteria, not a single dogmatic "AVI is better".

[kcmom]

Thank you for your input admin and jmac678! Looking forward to getting a capture card.

My mind is on overload from reading so much. I really know very little about this so all advice is appreciated. I'm oldschool and like to read from hardcopies, so I have begun a notebook with some of the info and guides found on your site. Never heard of some of this stuff till now (like codecs, image files, etc ) I have actually been able to dowload and use several things and was able to make copies of dvds for family members, from dvds that were made of some of their 8mm film! Slowly making progress

I read somewhere that DVDWS2 has to run in xp mode. If so, is this possible with windows7 Home Premium. If not, how much hard drive space will be needed. I have windows xp on an older desktop computer but it only has a 30 GB harddrive.

With the ATI card, should I capture to MPEG2 or AVI? And with what software? (?Virtualdub for AVI?)

From experiments capturing with borrowed not-so-good card, AVI seems to need a lot of harddrive space. Would it be a small enough file by the time it needs to be authored that I could use DVDWS2 on older computer if needed?

If I buy software, I would like, (if possible ), for it to work with another project in the planning-workflow thread for getting quicktime files of 8mm film onto dvds.

[kcmom]

If I get the ATI 600 card to capture 8mm and Hi8 video will I need to use virtual dub to capture, or something else?

[thecoalman]

Personally for me if the tapes are in good shape I'd just go buy the $10 firewire card and convert with camcorder. It doesn't get much easier or better than that if the tapes are in good shape.

I've done a lot of comparisons like capturing an analog steam from DV cam on my Canopus. There was almost no difference from the DV-AVI file vs the analog capture. As far as the TBC goes I never saw any real advantage when working with good tapes, last I looked the Datavideo 1000 was going for $500?

[kcmom]

Still waiting for payday to buy ATI 600 card, but anxious to try capturing hi8 with virtualdub to try to understand settings. I tried to follow settings suggested in guide, but because it was for a slightly different version of virtualdub, I made some guesses along the way - and was using hand-me-down Diamond VC500 capture card as well. I don't know what anyone can determine from a few seconds of a clip, but thought I would post a clip, since I have now learned how to cut off a piece of video. I will appreciate it if some can check it out and share thoughts!

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kcmom

I read somewhere that DVDWS2 has to run in xp mode. If so, is this possible with windows7 Home Premium. If not, how much hard drive space will be needed. I have windows xp on an older desktop computer but it only has a 30 GB harddrive.

"XP mode" is part of Windows 7. It essentially runs VirtualPC 2007, and then loads a copy of Windows XP inside of it. That's what had to be done with Windows Vista, though you have to manually add and install VirtualPC, and then you have to provide your own copy of Windows XP. With Windows 7, this was all integrated into a user-friendly "mode" so lower-knowledge users could still run XP-only software (like Ulead DVD Workshop2, aka DVDWS2).

It's virtually the same -- literally, it's a "virtual machine" -- as having a Windows XP computer.

Full instructions are here: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/dvd-...-workshop.html

Quote:

With the ATI card, should I capture to MPEG2 or AVI? And with what software? (?Virtualdub for AVI?)

Depends on what you want to do. Huffyuv with VirtualDub, or ATI CMC (Catalyst Media Center) for MPEG-2 capturing. I capture as MPEG-2 when it's ready-to-go type video quality. If I plan to edit, or restore it in any way, I save as Huffyuv AVI because you need to work with intermediary/mezzanine formats during that process. I also use ProRes422 when editing on Mac workflows.

Quote:

From experiments capturing with borrowed not-so-good card, AVI seems to need a lot of harddrive space. Would it be a small enough file by the time it needs to be authored that I could use DVDWS2 on older computer if needed?

Uncompressed AVI files are huge -- approx. 75GB/hour.
Lossless AVI files, like Huffyuv, range from about 35GB to 40GB/hour of footage.
You have to encode that to MPEG-2 first, in order to author it and create a DVD. The DVD-Video format specifies MPEG-2 video at specific resolutions, bitrates and frame rates. We discussed the use of Avidemux for MPEG-2 encoding in another thread**, so refer to that for proper specs on MPEG-2 encoding -- at least to start. To learn how to tweak resolution and bitrate, open new threads or read past threads and guides.

You'll find some concepts here:

• Guide to Understanding Video Sources, Part 2 – Capturing Videotapes
• Introduction to Digital Video Capturing, Recording TV (near the bottom is a rough bitrate graph)

Quote:

If I buy software, I would like, (if possible ), for it to work with another project in the planning-workflow thread for getting quicktime files of 8mm film onto dvds.

If you want to do quality editing, I would suggest buying Adobe Premiere Elements.
-- Tip! While it's sold online as a download directly from Adobe.com, it's actually a bit of a savings to buy the boxed version from Amazon.
-- Current version for $65: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...=digitalfaq-20
-- Or Premiere + Photoshop for $90: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...=digitalfaq-20

For serious projects, there's a lot of high quality software for encoding (MainConcept Reference, for example, for about $500), but I have a feeling that you're looking for low to moderate costs, and want to use freeware as best as possible. The guide written for you last night** listed out several great tools.

** The other thread is here: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...html#post22200