Video8/Hi8 to MacOS workflow recommendations?

[rickface]

Hi all,

I'm looking for recommendations on the best capture devices compatible with Mac (Intel) for capturing Video8 and Hi8 (all NTSC) footage as uncompressed video for the sake of archiving my old tapes.

My current kit list is:
Player: Sony GV-D200 player
MacBook Air 1.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7

Missing:
Analogue capture / S-Video interface

Most of my searches (and almost everything I have read in this forum) have pointed to Windows solutions, but not all of them are recent so I wanted to pose the question in case things had changed.

Thus far, I have been attempting to capture video the iLink firewire coming out of the GV-D200 using FFMPEG via command line, but then have read here that isn't the way (diluted colour / compresses), so that is out.

I have come across the Elgato device, Hauppage USB Live 2, and the Extreme / Shuttle, but not sure if these are the direction of travel I should be heading towards (or which).

Has anyone had success with a particular device or setup on a Mac? Any tips or command examples would be greatly appreciated!

To note: I also have an Intel NUC (no PCI slots) as well as a Windows 10 based Intell machine (with PCI slots) if necessary. Ideally, I would prefer a Mac-based solution, but if it's all the same price or cheaper on Windows with better quality, then I can go there too.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

[sterlingg]

I have the Sony GV-D200 I have used it connected via DV port on MAC via firewire cable. the digital 8 tapes looked fine one capture in quicktime, IMovie or Final Cut PRO (FCP) I liked final cut as it gave separate audio and video track. I used the video out and composite out into ADVC-300 and had similar results. Used a ATI card and had the best result on SVIDEO. colors looked correct to me. this was in 2012 when there were MAC compatible input devices. I am now looking at what USB device will do a good job of capturing as I no longer have the ATI. the apple adapters still work. thunderbolt3>thunderbolt2>firewire.

let me know what you find that works well

sg

[rickface]

Yes, I will let you know if I get past this hurdle!

[aramkolt]

Interesting that this topic is coming up quite often here recently. I don't own any Hi8 stuff but recently bought some cameras to play around with in case I end up needing to convert some of that in the future that others may have.

I have read a few sources that say that most (if not all) Digital8 players route the analog signal through the DV chip before converting back to analog for the S-Video and Composite outs. If that is the case, you'll get a sort of mild generation loss and possibly even the limitations of DV such as the 4:1:1 chroma subsampling from the analog outs. This is actually not too different to what the DMR-ES10 does during passthrough, though I really don't know what sort of equivalent bit depth, bit rate, or chroma subsampling the digital chip in that uses - Either way, people say there is some image degradation even through that in the form of "posterization" even though it is a highly recommended device when the benefits outweigh the risks.

I haven't seen tests that directly demonstrate an analog only Hi8 player vs a Digital8 player on the same source, but if the above is true, your best result would come from capturing your analog content via a non-D8 player with 4:2:2 chroma subsampling in a visually lossless codec (not DV) via S-Video.

A Mac friendly option that really never gets talked about much would be capturing into ProRes422/HQ using an SDI capture box after using an S-Video to SDI converter such as the Blackmagic Analog to SDI. That box I believe uses at least 10 bit color depth and 4:2:2 chroma subsampling and will preserve the 480i signal and interlacing.

From there, the actual signal can be captured by any SDI capture device, but the AJA KiPro or any of the Hyperdeck series can directly store it as ProRes in 480i/525i all without actually using your computer at all. You then just import the footage into your editor or convert as you usually would.

I'm told Video8/Hi8 is less likely to drop frames in general compared to say VHS, but I haven't tested that myself.

[Hushpower]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aramkolt

I have read a few sources that say that most (if not all) Digital8 players route the analog signal through the DV chip before converting back to analog for the S-Video and Composite outs.

Could you provide those sources?

Quote:

possibly even the limitations of DV such as the 4:1:1 chroma subsampling from the analog outs.

I think the chroma subsampling is determined by the capture device, not the player. None of my analogue digitisers even have the option of 4:1:1 for the usual capture codecs.

[rickface]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aramkolt

I have read a few sources that say that most (if not all) Digital8 players route the analog signal through the DV chip before converting back to analog for the S-Video and Composite outs. If that is the case, you'll get a sort of mild generation loss and possibly even the limitations of DV such as the 4:1:1 chroma subsampling from the analog outs.

Ouch, I had no idea...this was actually the kind of thing that I had assumed was happening by passing it through Firewire. Do you know how I might find this out on my specific model? I read the manual, but see nothing on this specifically. The attached screenshot from the manual seems to suggest otherwise?

Quote:

Originally Posted by aramkolt

I haven't seen tests that directly demonstrate an analog only Hi8 player vs a Digital8 player on the same source, but if the above is true, your best result would come from capturing your analog content via a non-D8 player with 4:2:2 chroma subsampling in a visually lossless codec (not DV) via S-Video.

I would have to buy a new player in that case. I guess it would come down to how much that bump in quality is worth (I am still hopefully the analogue in this player is true analogue. Hope someone can help confirm!)

Quote:

Originally Posted by aramkolt

A Mac friendly option that really never gets talked about much would be capturing into ProRes422/HQ using an SDI capture box after using an S-Video to SDI converter such as the Blackmagic Analog to SDI. That box I believe uses at least 10 bit color depth and 4:2:2 chroma subsampling and will preserve the 480i signal and interlacing.

From there, the actual signal can be captured by any SDI capture device, but the AJA KiPro or any of the Hyperdeck series can directly store it as ProRes in 480i/525i all without actually using your computer at all. You then just import the footage into your editor or convert as you usually would.

Beautiful Machine the AJA KiPro, but is this the one that is ~$5k? If so it's probably out of my budget. Maybe I can rent one? I've only got about 15 or so tapes. Are there any others that you would recommend that kind of just act as an uncompressed SDI -> USB C bypass into my mac?

Thanks for all the notes, this is really helpful.

[rickface]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sterlingg

I am now looking at what USB device will do a good job of capturing as I no longer have the ATI. the apple adapters still work. thunderbolt3>thunderbolt2>firewire.
sg

Hey Sterling, I'm still no further on this tbh. Havent been able to figure out if the GV-D200 is passing it's analog through a DV chip before converting back to analog for the S-Video and Composite outs, nor have I found a capture card that will allow me to use these inputs on a modern Mac.

Have you gotten any further?

[BW37]

It’s not quite definitive, but I believe the consensus is that most Sony D8 devices with line TBC for playback of analog tapes (Video8 or Hi8) do always pass the signal through a digital process before sending it to the analog outputs (ADC then DAC) but that this does not include a DV encoding of the signal. The best discussion of this I can find is here:
https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vid...igital8-3.html, starting at post #53.

Hope this is helpful,

BW

[aramkolt]

Nah $5k is ridiculous. The AJA KiPro's I'm referring to are like 15 years old at least should be more like sub $300 on the used market with a drive or two. It is possible to change the drives out in the drive modules for SSDs internally and for larger sizes, but requires some formatting of the drive beforehand with HFS (+?) non-journaled, though I've been able to do it with the journaled option and it seems to work fine using disk utility.

The other thing to keep in mind is that these transfer files off of the drives using firewire (the drives actually have a Firewire 800 port on them, or I think you can use the firewire 600 port on the back of the KiPro unit to pull data from the drive). There are other newer variants of the drives that have a USB micro 3.0 plug on the back of the drives instead of firewire that is much easier to adapt, but they also pop up for sale less often and I think they also require a separate power adapter to power the drive itself at the same time the USB micro port is being used. There's also a "KiPro Dock" that lets you put in any drive and convert it to USB 3.0 or Firewire with all power requirements being met by the dock.

This listing actually has the Blackmagic Analog to SDI included as well for $250.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/375556350241

I think the AJA KiPro doesn't get talked about much because it stores all of the data in HFS format, meaning that a regular Windows computers won't even see the drive without additional third party drivers and it also doesn't have analog inputs other than component. However, since they do have SDI which is digital and can support standard definition, you can convert your signal to that format before going into the KiPro. It is also nice that the KiPro has analog audio inputs as some analog to SDI converters don't embed audio (the Blackmagic analog to SDI can embed audio however - you'd just use some 1/4" phono to RCA adapters to get the audio into it).

The KiPro is mainly a way to store an already digital signal or component signal as a variety of ProRes files. I think their main original use-case was to take live feeds coming off of broadcast cameras in either SDI or component analog and store it for later editing without needing to involve mechanical media such as Betacam tapes etc. It was also way faster to just pull a digital file from one of those hard drives in editing than to have to replay mechanical tapes in realtime to then import to edit.

Downsides to the KiPro would be it's Mac centric (would be a pro rather than a con if using Mac), Can still rely on firewire for data transfers unless you have a KiPro Dock or the drive variants that have the USB 3 plug, and Mac still doesn't really have QTGMC deinterlacing available. There is "Hybrid" for Mac that has it, but I've personally had lots of errors with using it with the most recent MacOS and the development focus seems to be more on Windows, which I get.

Only other downside I think is that if using the analog audio inputs on the KiPro, it stores each audio channel as a separate mono track. This probably was preferable for broadcast and they may have also done it to max out the possible bitrate per audio channel in an uncompressed format, but it's a bit annoying if you plan to take your ProRes file and directly convert it to something else as usually you can only select one audio channel (which in this case is either of your two mono tracks).

FFmpeg does have a way to create a stereo file out of two mono tracks while leaving the video file unchanged, but it wasn't particularly clear to me how to do it in the command line, so I got some help from someone very helpful over on reddit for what I was doing wrong with my code and I wrote detailed instructions on how to set that up for Mac to be a script where you simply double click on the script, drag the file to be converted to stereo into the terminal window, then press enter. This reddit post doesn't really show up with google, so posting that here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffmpeg/comm...mment/l8qlibb/

[lordsmurf]

At some point, the conversation becomes ridiculous and futile.

The arguments against adding a Windows system is usually "I don't want more stuff on my desk" or "I don't want to spend more money". But now you're talking about bulky expensive hardware, all for the privilege of using a Mac?

More steps, more work, worse software, less quality. Irony squared.

Also, in this specific case, buy/use/resell is suggested, as it's a project with an end goal. But now you're way outside the norms, and you will likely own this equipment longterm to forever, no demand. It'll be vastly easier to just buy quality gear, use it, then resell, and done. That can include a budget Windows laptop (offline, no WiFi, set up solely for capture), proper capture card, and that GV-D200 -- but noting that workflow has no frame TBC of any kind, which makes the choice of capture cards that much more important.

I'm sometimes amazed at the hoops people jump through, in order to avoid some far better (or at least less worse).

[rickface]

Thank you all for the replies, I just realised they were here as somehow notifications weren't coming to me >_<

I don't mind the buy/resell scenario at all. You said it right especially with regard to hi-8 and video*, I won't be going back there again. I have a NUC PC (no cards allowed) and an HP ProLiant MicroServer Gen8 (which has a PCIe 2.0 x16 slot and which I recall is running Windows 10) sitting around the house, but I am so PC illiterate, I thought, provided there was a Mac based solution, I would just go that route.

I have the added trouble of being in France with my collection of NTSC tapes, and it's proving a bit hard to find a proper NTSC player that will run on European voltage. I am sure they exist, but they certainly aren't common and I have found a lot of conflicted information about which ones will actually do it.

So it's more of a "go with what you know" or "least path of resistance" that had me starting with a mac. If you have any recommendations that can get me moving (player, PCIe capture card or just a ready-made set up) and software, I am all for it. Really, I just want to get the job done and the equipment in someone else's hands again so they can do the same.

On a side note, my manual seemed to say that the GV-D200 does in fact have a built in TBC. Is that not right?