Planning to digitize a lot of analog VHS and Hi8
 

Hi. This was a very useful tread - http://www.digitalFAQ.com/forum/show...svhs-2254.html

I'm also planning to digitize a lot of analog (VHS and Hi8). I have a Blaupunkt RTV 950PC HfFi SVHS machine. It cost a fortune back in the seventies and have almost not been used. And, after reading this tread, I understand that my Sony TRV900 will do the conversion job good enough.
But.......... I want to store the video in a high quality format so that it can be used for viewing on a HDTV from a PC-based mediaplayer, but also burning DVDs from it. Space is not a problem anymore as hardisks get cheaper and cheaper.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

That should be a good unit, a clone/rebadge of the Panasonic NV-FS200, which is the PAL version of a Panasonic AG-1980P. However, this gives me pause...
... and I'm pretty sure the AG-1980's (and all clones and PAL variations thereof) are products of the mid/late 1990s.

I've read this elsewhere online, from a source that appears trustworthy...
... that's from the equipment notes of astronomer Gerhard Dangl.
This was also confirmed by others I've met online, and it was added to the Suggested VCRs for Video Capturing page last year.

For the 8mm and/or Hi8 video tapes, yes. :)

Huffyuv and MPEG-2 I-frame are two great options. The key questions are:
1. How many videos total?
2. Average length of each of the videos?
3. Desired amount of hard drive space allocated, or budget to spend on new drives?

To calculate #3:
Huffyuv is about 35-40GB/hour, while MPEG-2 I-frame is closer to 15-25GB/hour. Lagarith is another option, though I'd suggest it is not as tested for time as the others. (HuffYUV and MPEG-2 will undoubtedly be accessible files in 20 years, while Lagarith is an unknown.)

More questions
 

Thanks very much for the answer. It was very helpful.
You're probably right about the S-VHS machine. I looked at the manuals and they seem to be printed in 1993. And yes, at the time I bought it, I heard that it was the same as a Panasonic machine. (Usually I'm wrong the other way; I think something happened four years ago, but actually it was 6 or 7 ;) )

I will try the Hyffyuv or MPEG-2 for the VHS/Hi8. I have not actually counted the tapes and time, but I don't think harddisk cost should be any problem. I've just put in a new 2TB RAID1 in my server and it cost less than $ 200. I looks like the TB/$ rate has doubled in just about one year.

I have been fiddling with photo and video for a long time (mixed with several other hobbies). So far, I have mainly used the editing tools "off the shelf" without going into depth about codecs. Therefore, your infomation very useful to me.
And thus; more questions arise...................

After the Hi8 era, I switched to Mini-DV and most of my videos are in this format. Here, I have been editing the tapes in Premiere and put them back on tape again. And that has been a good method so far. But here also, it would be nice to have it stored on disk for easier access. Will the Huffyuv or MPEG-2 be ok regarding quality for this conversion also?

Last year, I bought a harddisk based Sony HD camera (HDRXR500V) and also a Nikon D90 with the option to record HD video. This makes it even more necessary to process the recordings. I cannot just put a cassette in a drawer and forget about it for some years. The camera will be full in a short time. I guess HD recordings put greater quality demands on the codec? Any suggestions for this process?

The Nikon produces .avi files. Until recently, in my ignorance, I thought that avi also was a codec, but now I have learned that avi is just a container and that the data in it is coded with a codec (or uncompressed ??). Do you know what codec the Nikon uses?

I've moved this new conversation into it's own new thread. :)

Very nice. This is a true RAID (not that awful RAID-0), and is good for redundant file copies.

Since it's home-shot material, and is already DV, just leave as DV. You can "capture" (transfer) the tapes to the hard drive as-is. DV is 13GB/hour. You would not want to convert other video tapes to DV, but you can leave DV as-is just fine. HuffYUV is better for other tapes, or MPEG-2 is better for NTSC and same as DV for PAL.

I shoot with a Nikon D3s, and right now I'm saving those source videos to a RAID-1 hard drive. They're already pretty well compressed, as MJPEG format video. Indeed, CompactFlash (or SD card) is too expensive to shoot and stick in a drawer, as those are not cheap storage like video tapes were.

The specs should be in the instruction manual. I don't have my novel on me this morning, but I know it was in the D3s book. It's MJPEG, thought I forget the rest of the specs. For the D3s, it's also 720p 24fps. The D90 is either similar or the very same, as it's from the same "DSLR video generation" -- 2008-2009 era, sort of the tail end of the first generation of DSLR video. The new December 2010 released Nikon D7000 is much better on quality and specs, though I believe it jumped to H.264 AVCHD, and isn't MJPEG. Long-term, MJPEG is easier to work with in editors.