Hi8 Capture - Noise/Interference at bottom of frame
 

Hi,
I have been transferring my home video Hi8 analog tapes using a Sony TRV-350 (TBC) over Firewire using scenalyzer. Most have transferred fine but a number have this horrible barcode distortion of the picture at the bottom part of the screen. I guess cropping is one way to get rid of this but any valuable video info will go too. The tape looks physically fine to my eye and changing the spools into a new cassette housing has made no difference. The tapes that captured fine have a tiny amount of pixel crawl at the bottom which I assume is the head switching interference but you will see in this clip that this is far worse. Is this a tracking issue?

On a side note what is the best way to get rid of the noise in the audio on the background -eg. on an audio tape I would analyze the noise and subtract it from the track. Can I do that on video without stripping the audio and remuxing. Which software or plugin please?

I have searched for solutions on the forum and the net but this appears not to have been covered before.

How do I correct these please?:omg:
Many thanks and appreciate the help!

The barcode effort is common on Sony Hi-8/D8 units, they seem to just repeat the last good line of video as a form of dropout compensation.

You either have tape damage, a bad recording, or the camcorder is malfunctioning. It looks like the last few lines aren't properly tracking. The audio problem is related as the 8mm format uses AFM audio tracks that are embedded in the video track. You can't manually track 8mm tapes however, the system is auto tracking (there is a "pilot" signal that the player locks on to) and it may be out of whack on that camcorder.

Were the tapes all from the same camcorder? Its also possible that the recording camcorder was way out of alignment at the time and those particular tapes only play right in the original camcorder. It may be worth getting another Hi-8 camcorder to see if the tapes play correctly, even better would be the original recording camcorder.

Thanks for that. The original Hi8 camcorder is long gone. The other tapes (many recorded later) do work fine. I guess I will try another digital8 possibly TRV820 to see if I can recover the information otherwise crop my way through the mess. Just wondered does the EV-S7000 do a better job at this? I read somewhere that the tracking can be adjusted but only in certain modes. Or are non Sony Hi8s better at it?

Reading the EV-S7000's manual, the tracking can only be adjusted in slow motion or shuttle/picture scan modes, not normal playback. I also don't know if its possible to "misalign" a Hi-8 player to properly track the tapes due to the pilot tracking system. I wouldn't attempt it on a EV-S7000 though, as they are rare and expensive to buy.

In terms of 8mm playback, the Sony units are going to be the best out there. They were the only company releasing high end Hi-8 equipment here in the US.

EV-S7000 coarse tracking (like any Hi8 deck) is adjustable by screwing two tape guides up and down. It's not rocket science but getting it to factory value afterwards is not always easy.

Seeing that the EV-S7000 sells for $700-800 here in the US, it might be best to do that with a cheaper Hi-8 camcorder or one of those video walkman units.

Great Guys! Appreciate your time. FYI that clip is from Northern Ireland. Heading to buy another digital8:thumb: