A/V cable from Hi8 camera?

[Kurgan]

Good Day All,

Haven’t had to think about this in years but I recently broke out all my old digitizing equipment and went on a tear in order to get rid of the literally hundreds of old tapes my wife has been hoarding. A good portion has been done using my still very reliable Sony PC-109 camcorder with the built in pass-through feature (accepts incoming A/V with output going over FireWire). That end of things has been working fine.

Where I’m hitting a wall now is with some ancient Hi 8 tapes. I have a borrowed Sony CCD-TRV138 Hi 8 camcorder that’s actually in pretty good shape. My issue is that the only output option for this camera is A/V. The PC-109 accepts incoming A/V - however finding a cable with A/V adapters at *both* ends seems to be a tall order. (A/V to composite are easy to find but composite won’t help me in this case.)

My questions are:

1. Does such a cable exist?
2. Either way, is my approach to this the correct one?

I appreciate any feedback anyone could provide.

Thanks!

[latreche34]

The issue is that the Sony CCD-TRV138 does not have S-Video out, only composite and audio mono, Despite being a Hi8 camcorder and can actually record HiFi Stereo but there is no way of getting them out of the camcorder itself, I don't know why Sony did this but if I can guess maybe to promote selling full fledged Hi8 home decks to playback tapes in them in S-Video and HiFi Stereo.

So the physical connectivity is not the issue, it is the compatibility of connectors, If both camcorders have S-Video and white and red RCA's for audio, all you have to do is get couplers, assuming you have the A/V cables for both camcorders, It is still possible but you'll have to use composite and one audio channel, or add mono to stereo RCA splitter.

Couplers like these:
S-Video coupler,
RCA coupler,
Mono to Stereo RCA splitter,

Use RCA couplers to change from male to female.

[lordsmurf]

The 138 is one of the nicest Hi8 models made, and the composite output is actually quite good.

Composite often gets an undeserved bad reputation for being soft, and/or for dot crawl. But the crappy devices (or crappy output on a good device) are to blame. Not composite itself, from an intrinsic stance. You can properly composite output, though few items do.

What will actually lose quality here is the old DV camera, crushing the color quality down to DV. That will ruin video far more than composite can. DV softens more.

A better capture card is the solution here.

- Where are you (PAL, NTSC)
- What OS? Noting WinXP/7 best, 10/11 worst, Mac/Linux not really an option

[Kurgan]

Thanks, Latreche. Unless I'm mistaken, this Hi 8 camera has only the A/V output and nothing more. Unfortunately, the Sony camcorder with the pass-though feature that I've been using also has only A/V and a Lanc port, if I remember right. Back to square one here, but I appreciate your feedback.

-- merged --

Thanks for the quick reply, Lord Smurf.

Never knew DV meant color loss and would not have guessed that OS/version would make that much of a difference.

I'm in the States, so NTSC it is. And, although Win10/11 are my daily drivers, I can come up with a Win7 box, no problem. Is there a specific card (or two) you'd recommend? FWIW, this is a get it done quick and move on project. Quality is not unimportant, but my priority is getting on the fastest route to finished here. Also, I've been and plan to continue using Scenalyzer, in case it matters.

On another note, it's been a *long* time, but you and I spoke enough back in the early days of the old videohelp forums that I remembered you right away, even 20 years later. I think my screen name back then was Zeek. Glad to see you're still at it and thanks again for the help!

[latreche34]

Either way you'll still need the A/V cable for each camcorder otherwise you can't use neither, The sucky part is not just composite issue but the camcorders use different A/V cables, one has proprietary plug shaped like mini USB, the other uses a standard 3.5 mm jack, So you can't just buy 2 of one cable, you'll have to get each one, Without those cables you can't use neither camcorder.
How did you use the DV camcorder in passthough though if you don't have the A/V cable?

[Kurgan]

Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear.

For this type of thing, I normally do use an A/V cable for input to the camera with the pass-through feature. The other end of the cable, the 3-plug composite end, goes into the source device. Unfortunately, in this case, the Hi-8 camcorder that is the source has A/V as the *only* output option. This is why I was wondering about a cable with A/V at both ends in my original post.

[latreche34]

That's what I just said, Get the A/V cable for the Hi8 camcorder and use the couplers I posted the links above to connect both A/V cables to each other. Do I really have to draw a diagram? It is not that hard to imagine. As I mentioned you will not be able to use S-Video, Only composite because the Hi8 camcorder you have is a low budget camcorder that has composite only and mono audio.