Which s-video converter to purchase?
 

Hello, I am an absolute newcomer when it comes to converting analog to digital. I recently found some old Hi-8 tapes and was interested in converting them and archiving them to a NAS. However, this turned out to be much more complicated than I expected. Fortunately, I have a Sony CCD-TRV99, which according to the http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...-digital8.html list, has both TBC and s-video. The part that I'm confused about now is the capture card. It seems that everyone has their own opinion regarding whether to use USB vs a PCI slot, various Windows OS's, and I'm just lost. If all possibilities are an option, what is the best way to get a lossless signal from S-video onto my PC?

The reason you read many options is that there are many options, and "best" depends on the criteria you use and the condition/state of the tapes you want to capture. Other threads here will describe workflows (including gear and software) that generally will give better results viewed from an image quality and restoration potential of the resulting capture.

Criteria for 'best" might include
- speed to an end product
- ease of use
- net cost (or first cost)
- time spent on learning curve
- maximum use of already owned gear/software
- potential for serious restoration processing after capture
to name a few.

@dpalomaki, well explained!

For example, if we take the canopus advc-100/110 convertors, a lot of people consider them the "best".
- time spent on learning curve: none, easy as hell.
- potential for serious restoration processing after capture: not much, what is lost in the DV conversion is lost :(

This thread is really getting too philosophical, and not practical. :hmm:

A lot of opinions on capture cards are wrong. Yes, wrong opinions. This is because the opinions are based on flawed data, or more often no data at all. Just "shoot from the hip" random buying, and accepting whatever they're given. No understanding of what it can look like, or should look like. No real care is given to the process. The person just sees an image of any random quality, and proclaims it a "good" card (or "good enough" aka excuse for bad quality).

The best capture OS are WinXP and Win7. It quickly gets worse to impossible from there. So we need to start at OS. Do you have WinXP or Win7?