I have about 30 tapes of home movies I need transferred in the highest possible quality. Since the footage contains personal footage, I'd rather not outsource the work.
I am interested in archiving the footage to my computer. One day, I may want to make DVDs, Blu-rays, MP4s for smartphones, etc., but I am not concerned about that now. As long as I have the videos in the highest quality (i.e. archival) form on my Windows PC, I can do whatever I need to do in the future without redoing the capture / transfer process.
The tapes are of the following formats:
-VHS
-VHS-C
-Hi8 (not XR)
-MiniDV
-HDV
I'm dividing up the project into 3 categories: (1) VHS/VHS-C, (2) Hi8, (3) MiniDV/HDV
Based on what I have read here on the forum, I'm thinking about the following workflows:
VHS/VHS-C:
- Play tapes with Panasonic AG-1980 VCR
- Output from AG-1980 (TBC On, Edit On, DNR Off) via S-Video to AV Toolbox AVT-8710
- Output from AVT-8710 to Matrox MX02 capture card
- Capture in lossless
huffyuv avi
- Process in AviSynth
Hi8 (not XR):
- Play tapes with a Sony Hi8 camcorder that has TBC, S-video out (like CCD-TRV615)
- Output from Hi8 camcorder (TBC On, DNR Off) via S-Video to AV Toolbox AVT-8710
- Output from AVT-8710 to Matrox MX02 capture card
- Capture in lossless
huffyuv avi
- Process in AviSynth
MiniDV / HDV
- Play tapes with any HDV camcorder that has IEEE 1394 out
- Output from camcorder via IEEE 1394 out to firewire input on Windows 10 PC
- Capture in DV via ScenalyzerLive
- Process in AviSynth
My questions / concerns:
- Is there anything wrong with the above workflows? Am I missing anything? Am I including something that's overkill? Are there any other recommendations? I'm looking for the best possible quality, but I don't want to spend money that I don't have to.
- I've read here on the forums that VCRs have to be serviced first before they are used, to make sure everything is as good as it should be. Ok. Let's assume that I buy or get a used VCR "serviced". I play my VHS/VHS-C tapes. It looks "ok" (I mean VHS doesn't look good to begin with). Maybe there are some obvious problems (noise, jitter, etc.), but I don't know if that's just to be expected with VHS/VHS-C. How do I know if the VCR has been serviced properly, i.e. I'm getting the best possible quality?
- Does the Hi8mm camcorder need to be "serviced" too for best quality? Or if it "works" (i.e. plays back the tape "fine"), then is that all that I need to be concerned about?
- Does my assumption that "any" HDV camcorder will do for playing a MiniDV/HDV tape via IEEE 1394 hold true? I am also assuming since it's a digital transmission, I don't need to worry about the HDV camcorder being "serviced", i.e. if it "works", then it's good enough.
- I've been reading about "defects" concerning the AVT-8710. Will these defects affect me? How do I avoid them? Are there alternatives to the AVT-8710? I looked at this forum for recommended TBCs and other than the Datavideo TBC-100 (which isn't available, even on
eBay), they all have problems of their own. In 2017, what TBC should I be looking for? I noticed there seems to be some AVT-8710 clones on
eBay (i.e.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Video-Time-B...UAAOSw3xJVYR~H). Anyone know anything about these? What about replacing the AVT-8710 with a Panasonic DMR-ES10 DVD Recorder used as a pass-through. Will that be fine for my workflows?