Blackmagic Design analog to SDI viable for Hi8 tapes?
 

Hello,

I am looking to convert my Hi8 cassette tapes into digital using the Black Magic Design Analog to SDI converter or the Black Magic Intensity Pro 4K. I was wondering if any of these would be a viable option?

I am planning for my work flow to be
Hi8 Sony camera -> Analog to SDI -> SDI to Thunderbolt -> DaVinciResolve

OR

Hi8 Sony camera -> BMD Intensity Pro 4K -> DaVinciResolve

This seems to be the most straightforward and possibly best option for me but I just wanted to ask before buying the equipment. :)

Welcome. :)

Blackmagic makes HD card that "also does" (and quite poorly) SD video capture/ingest. Not at all suggested for H8 videotape capturing. It will "work", but with issues and errors.

DaVinci Resolve is not capturing software, do not use an NLE/editor for capturing. You will have no but problems. Use capturing software, ideally VirtualDub, and with a quality ATI/Pinnacle type capture card.

What you've suggested is actually not at all straightforward.

What camera model is that? Confirm line TBC inside.

And then you lack any frame TBC. While this generally will not work, it is especially the case with Blackmagic gear, which freak out or fails.

Still have testing to do on the analog to SDI Blackmagic devices, but would agree that they in particular do need a frame TBC. The unique thing about those is that they can take in composite, component, and S-Video and that they also happen to have an SDI analog audio embedder. As LS mentioned, you do also want to make sure your tape player has a line TBC as well.

So as for the camera model I have, it is a Sony CCD-TR516. As far as I know, it does not have a TBC.

Would I still be able to capture home videos without one? I understand they are important but they also seem to be going for a lot online.

The analog to SDI conversion method came to mind since I saw it online on a Linus Tech Tips video and also saw a few others using it online with good results.

I am still fairly new to this whole topic and am trying to learn so please correct me if I am wrong on anything and thank you for your help thus far :)

Confirm, do not guess.
Read the camera user manual.
Also look over this thread: https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vid...-digital8.html

Not really. At best, you'll get craptastic quality. We're not talking minor issues here, but excessive image wiggling, loss of picture, etc. Messy. Line TBCs clean the image.

What do you think is "a lot"? Hi8 cameras with line TBC are maybe $250 at most, sometime even $100 if you snag a bargain unit.

(While eBay is a terrible place to buy VCRs, or even frame TBCs, it still fine-ish for Hi8 cameras. Just be sure to look for a unit that is complete, with battery, manuals, etc. Either get it from the original owner, or somebody that sells only cameras. What you don't want it to buy a camera from a recycler/reseller than just puts up random crap in random condition, and want $$$ for their piss poor non-existent effort.)

Frame TBCs are about $2k average, yes. And you do need some form of frame TBC (otherwise you'll drop frames, lose audio sync). The easy method is to get an actual frame TBC. Buy it, use it, resell it, quality gear holds value. But not from eBay. Also not any random TBC, but specific units, as discussed on this forum. There are budget TBC(ish) options, but it has caveats and tradeoffs.

Right now, you propose spendings money on an expensive HD card that doesn't do you much good. Don't buy that, put that money towards the items that you actually need for this project.

Linus is great with computers, but he's clueless about video (and he admits it). That's not what you want here. To put it in Linus terms, it's like buying a DDR5 RAM (new HD card) for an old DDR3 motherboard (ikd Hi8 tapes). It doesn't work that way.

New is fine, learning is good. :)

Black Magic has a bad reputation for handling analog sources from consumer video tape machines, Not that because it's SD, They do a great job handling broadcast analog SD formats such as Betacam, But more about consumer formats being too unstable, Anything pass SDI I can assure you they work miracles, whether USB3, TB, PCIe, But the the analog side cannot be relied on. I've seen some good samples from BMD Intensity Pro but I believe the VCR is good to begin with.

I still think the idea is that since Blackmagic devices require a very stable signal, a good frame TBC is an absolute requirement for using them - but I would think that they'd otherwise work fine if those requirements are met.

I don't think I've seen a Blackmagic device choke on video from a VCR with the line TBC enabled and a frame TBC inline, but I'm open to being shown links that show this. I'll do my own testing soon.