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10-05-2012, 12:20 PM
Jondough Jondough is offline
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Hello everyone, first post here.

I have a few old "spring break" tapes I would like to convert to digital. Haven't seen the tapes in years so I decided I should transfer them to my PC for better viewing. As I was going through my storage for the tapes and camcorder I realized that the camcorder I once owned was no longer in my possession. Do not know what happened to the camcorder but at least I was able to find the tapes. Did some quick research and bought...
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ls_o02_s00_i00 Paid $30.

Fast forward to yesterday. I purchased a Sony CCD-TRV67 camcorder from craigslist for $40. I tested the camcorder on the spot and everything seemed to work fine. It came with a Hi8 tape already inside, so I hit play and the video starts playing some random family I do not know. IT WORKS!! Money exchanged hands. I left.

Now for my problem. As soon as I get home I pop in one of my old hi8/8 tapes....it doesn't work. All I get is blue screen/static tv. I tried three,four,five more tapes and it does the same. Popped in the original tape the camcorder came with and it plays that tape just fine. and i KNOW there is/was footage on my old tapes.

So my question is, can that sony camcorder I bought maybe not be compatible with my old Hi8/8mm tapes for some odd reason? or are my Hi8 tapes somehow damage from being in garage storage to long? Tapes all look in great condition. I really want to transfer these tapes but I'm not sure what my next step would be.

Any help would be welcomed.

Thanks.
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Someday, 12:01 PM
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  #2  
10-05-2012, 12:35 PM
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kpmedia kpmedia is offline
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I'm busy right now, but just had to reply ASAP on this one. Why? Because one of my personal projects is also spring break VHS-C tapes from what feels like a lifetime ago. As soon as I saw the phrase "spring break tapes", I had a flash back to one of the tapes I just finished transferring to high bitrate MPEG-2 for Blu-ray.

The Honestech VHS to DVD 5.0 Deluxe is easily a junky device, and not what you want if you're hoping for archival quality. At best, it gives a degraded Youtube-like look to your videos. Most people are not fine with that. I know I'm not. I'd instead look at getting an ATI 600 card, if these are important memories that you're hoping to save in top quality.

Garages have a way of damaging tapes, yes, but not to the point where every tape is static.

It may be an issue with your old tapes being recorded on a misaligned Hi8 or Video8 camera. Were all of these recorded on the same camera? How long ago did you record these? Let's make sure they're really Video8 or Hi8, and not Digital8. There is a difference between each format.

On the other hand, the camcorder you have now may be misaligned. You'd need another camera -- preferably one known to be good -- to eliminate variables, be it tapes or cameras.

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  #3  
10-05-2012, 05:30 PM
NJRoadfan NJRoadfan is offline
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If the camcorder was from 1999-2005 or so, its likely it was a Digital 8 model. Playback on an analog camcorder will produce no video. Any recollection of the model number of the original camcorder? If it started with "DCR", it was a Digital-8 model. You should be able to get SOMETHING off of the tapes if they are analog. I know my NTSC CCD-TRV65 managed to produce brief bursts of what looked like video when I put in what I believe was a PAL tape.
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  #4  
10-05-2012, 06:24 PM
Jondough Jondough is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kpmedia View Post

It may be an issue with your old tapes being recorded on a misaligned Hi8 or Video8 camera. Were all of these recorded on the same camera? How long ago did you record these? Let's make sure they're really Video8 or Hi8, and not Digital8. There is a difference between each format.

On the other hand, the camcorder you have now may be misaligned. You'd need another camera -- preferably one known to be good -- to eliminate variables, be it tapes or cameras.
Thanks for the response. I believe most of these were recorded from the same camcorder, maybe 1 or 2 were recorded with my friends camcorder during our trips.

I took a picture of the tapes in question that do not work...

photo2jv.jpg

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This is the tape that came with the camcorder I purchased that works fine...

photo1sv.jpg

I hope I did not purchase the wrong camcorder. I assumed that all Hi8 camcorders play all Hi8 & 8mm tapes. I would have bypassed all this mess and just have it professionally done but I don't remember everything thats on these tapes and I didn't want some stranger viewing my personal footage. My spring break days are a tad blurry....


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  #5  
10-05-2012, 06:26 PM
Jondough Jondough is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NJRoadfan View Post
If the camcorder was from 1999-2005 or so, its likely it was a Digital 8 model. Playback on an analog camcorder will produce no video. Any recollection of the model number of the original camcorder? If it started with "DCR", it was a Digital-8 model. You should be able to get SOMETHING off of the tapes if they are analog. I know my NTSC CCD-TRV65 managed to produce brief bursts of what looked like video when I put in what I believe was a PAL tape.
I do not recall what camcorder it was. This was over 10 years ago. And my tapes produced no brief bursts of anything. Just blue screen to static.
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  #6  
10-05-2012, 07:17 PM
volksjager volksjager is offline
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the tapes you have may very well have been used in a Digital 8 cam. if they where then you have no choice but to get a D8 camera

on the plus side you can easy sell the Hi8 cam you bought

if you only have the 3 tapes your best bet is to send them in here. i wouldn't use a local-yokel transfer service or any that advertise on ebay
90% of these have no clue what they are doing. i even remember emailing one who had no idea what a TBC was.
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  #7  
10-10-2012, 01:17 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by volksjager View Post
if you only have the 3 tapes your best bet is to send them in here. i wouldn't use a local-yokel transfer service or any that advertise on ebay
90% of these have no clue what they are doing. i even remember emailing one who had no idea what a TBC was.
At minimum, see if somebody can confirm or deny that these are D8 tapes by playing them in a D8 deck.
It was possible to use "Hi8" tapes in a D8 camera, but it recorded DV digital data to it -- not Hi8 analog.

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  #8  
10-12-2012, 03:10 PM
NJRoadfan NJRoadfan is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by admin View Post
At minimum, see if somebody can confirm or deny that these are D8 tapes by playing them in a D8 deck.
It was possible to use "Hi8" tapes in a D8 camera, but it recorded DV digital data to it -- not Hi8 analog.
There were never dedicated "Digital 8" tapes sold. Later Hi-8 tapes mark the Digital-8 run time and logo, but thats it. Physically its a Hi-8 tape, just with digital data written to it. You could also use standard Video-8 tapes for Digital-8 but Sony strongly discouraged it. LP mode was also disabled when using the standard tapes too.
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