Capturing Video8 with Mac or PC?
 

Good morning everyone
I intend to save 5 tapes with family memories in Video8 format recorded with a Canon ES50 camcorder as master and then edit them. I have two options:

2012 iMac 27”
Connect the Canon to the Canopus ADVC-55 converter (which I already have), then with Firewire 400 to 800 adapter and then Apple Firewire 800 to Thunderbolt adapter (35+10 €) connect it to the Mac.

2015 HP spectre x360 laptop win 10
Connect the Canon to the USB port of the laptop via Hauppauge USB2 Live converter (50 €)

The cost would then be the same. What's the best choice? Which software to use for the acquisition? In which format to save the Master? Any other suggestions?

The second option is better if the camcorder is built in Line TBC, otherwise you will be getting yourself into a rabbit hole with problematic tapes.

As far as i'm concerned i don't (and will not) mess with laptops / usb cards / hdd's, so my logic leaves you with the Mac but you inherit the advc55 (with he infamous 4.1.1 chroma subsampling coding for nstc) If you have Pal tapes then that's fine by me (4.2.0 coding), i mean go for it.

The Mac option is messy. ADVC boxes are lossy 1990s tech, yet sadly one of the only items that Mac supports. It will bake in errors, and leave you with degrades quality video. Mac was always very anti-video (SD era), especially capturing. HD tools are miserable to work with for SD sources.

The HP laptop with Win10 can be fine. There are pathways to success. Just be sure to use a Hi8 camera with line TBC, or it gets messy again, total project failure. Hi8 is a drop-happy format, so lack of frame TBC may be an issue. But with only 5 tapes, try to skip it.

That brings us to another issue. When you skimp on TBCs, the VCR/camera and capture card get even more important. That Hauppauge card is somewhat unstable. Or rather, extremely easy to make unstable. There are other cards that are more forgiving, more stable, when fed semi-stable sources (aka, lacking frame TBC). It's not magic, and (in general) will definitely fail more than not (ie, not a TBC replacement). But to faithfully capture those 5 tapes, and not lose your sanity, you'll want to go down this better path. For example, certain versions of certain Pinnacle cards. (Much like Hauppage, Pinnacle reuses model names/numbers, production changes, so giving out exact model numbers of rendered moot.)

So you plan isn't too far off of being good, just
(1) verify the TBC in the camera -- and get another if not present
(2) get a better card

And, as always, buy it, use it, resell it, quality gear holds value. (Junk if yours forever, and ruined your conversions. Lost money, lousy quality, lose-lose.)

FWIW - From the Canon Camera Museum overview of the ES50:
"In addition, the Time Base Corrector realized razor-sharp images during playback."
It is also mentioned in the user manual.

You could try the ADVC55 approach and see if you are happy with it recognizing the DV approach has limitations. There is an application note on Grass Valley support pages that addresses using the legacy ADVC series with Firewire 800.
https://wwwapps.grassvalley.com/docs...C_FireWire.pdf

How about providing some examples? People come on here for advice because they don't know their video lefts from their rights. These sites are where they learn but when it comes to actual equipment, you should be more specific. You have the expert equipment knowledge; how about sharing it?

thanks everyone for your replies. since the camera seems to have the TBC, I'm trying to look on the store in my area for some USB system. Do you see anything interesting here?
https://www.subito.it/annunci-lombar...q=pinnacle+usb
https://www.subito.it/annunci-italia.../?q=Hauppauge+