Is this a good Video8 workflow?

[bradgranath]

Hallo. What a place y'all have here. I paid the twenty bucks to say: thanks for still being here!

I have a stack of ~60 Video8 Tapes from between 1990 - 2005. All shot with various Sony Video8 Camcorders. No Hi8. No Digital8. Mostly Sony MP120 and TDK HS120 tapes, with some maxell and Fuji tapes as well. All in very good condition and well cared for. No idea which tapes are recorded in SP and which in LP, or how to tell.

Step 1: stick a serialized label on each tape and make a spreadsheet with the ID number, tape capacity, what's written on the label, and what year I suppose it starts. Done.

I'm trying to set up a decent workflow. I've been reviewing them on a Sony TRV-7000 connected to my FireWire port. It allows me to review the contents of the tape, but the quality is dreadful. The DV compression is bad enough (not so bad that I didn't try it to see if it would work... lord it looks awful) but the main problem is that there are dreadful multicolored vertical stripes that make hash of the colors when I try playing most of the tapes.

Some tapes don't have this issue and play totally fine. Always the same tapes though, so it isn't a random issue with the VTR.

Anyhoo... I also dug out my old Sony CCD-V8AF, and plugged it in to the Sony ECR137 TV and these 'trouble tapes' play without issue.

So, back to square one: The TRV-7000 isn't gonna cut it; DV compression or no.

So...

Now I've got an Osprey 260e on order from Ebay. Planning on capturing to huffyuv60i AVI to a 6TB harddrive directly through the CCD-V8AF.

On the V8AF playing through the ECR137 the tapes look fine. No tracking issues, no wobble, audio sounds fine. Do I still need a TCB? When I used to capture Digital8 or miniDV tapes - back in the day - 'dropped frames' were a thing? but this is different in analog, right? None of the tapes was ever 'striped' ahead of time so the timecode is likely a mess, but I'm not familiar with what that mess looks like in the analog world and how/how much to worry about it. My current plan to deal with it is:
Monitor the playback and capture stats for problems, stop capture when they occur, try to restart capture from a previously captured point without issues, mark the file split in the log.

As it captures, I'll stand by with a pencil and make notes on what happens and where during playback. Definitely gonna space this out since I've got something like 100 or so hours of tape to roll.

Deinterlace with QTGMC and transcode to huffyuv30p. (Settings to tune QTGMC for erratic dad-cameraman who sometimes forgot that he'd pressed record?)

Transcode offline proxies.

Editing/magic/other stuff...........

Delivery to YouTube/iPhotos. This delivery part is getting to me. My parents are richie-rich techphobes. They have iphones, but can't manage their MacBooks or get their TV to change to correct input. So, I want this in a format I can throw on a thumbdrive whenever they ask for it and or, I can just dump it into their iCloud. Is it worth trying to upscale it myself, or should I just upload the highest resolution I have and let the chips fall as them may on a given platform?

[lordsmurf]

For Video8, you still want a Hi8 player with line TBC.

You'd better be careful about "reviewing" tapes. At this late date, the 2020s, there is a good chance that each play of the tape damages it. Too many times these days, tapes are "one and done". If you wasted that "one" from watching, or even doing that silly pointless FF/REW "trick", then it may not work well, or at all, for the actual capture.

Osprey is supposedly comparable to AIW, but more fiddly in usage. So the card may be fine.

Video8/Hi8 tapes are "drop-happy" -- and the timing can actually mess with capture in several ways, not just frame drops. Some of the issues you're describing can be from lack of frame TBC. (Not just any random "frame TBC", but specific models, such as TBC-1000, and others).

Retain your interlaced lossless masters.

Don't bother upscaling. If they're techno-ignorant, then give them a deinterlaced H.264 in MP4, with the black bars add to the side so they don't watch it stretched. Hopefully they know how to use a thumb drive. Everybody has "those kinds of people" in the family, and usually it's refusal to learn, intentionally being obtuse.

You're software workflow seems fine. Just be mindful of settings.

[bradgranath]

What is the advantage of the Hi8 deck? I can get rollin' on a TBC. You have one on offer now? Also saw a 'working' DPS 290 (leds and lcd lit up in the pictures) on ebay for $250, which seems too good to be true. Should I jump on it? Mebe also needs something to genlock to?

[latreche34]

Hi8 camcorder has the advantage of avoiding combining luma and chroma in a single wire called CVBS (yellow composite), S-Video gives sharper details and better chroma separation vs washed out details and faded chroma. Line TBC stabilizes scan lines.

Don't buy home decks, they have mechanical problems.

[hodgey]

It sounds like the TR-7000 has something wrong with it (haven't seen this particular issue) otherwise it ought to work well for playback.

The late model Sony Hi8 and digital8 camcorders has an excellent digical video circuit including an excellent TBC that stabilizes the image really well, so the playback quality on them is usually as least as good as the decks, the newest which are from the mid 90s.

There are some cases where decks can be useful as they are a bit more serviceable , and they can rewind tapes much faster. The main case where you do want one is if you have tapes with PCM audio, something found on the fancier decks and some of the "pro" cameras like the CCD-V5000. The consumer camcorders did not support this.

[latreche34]

I always use tape rewinder, I'm not concerned about rewind speed as much as I am about head wear of my camcorders.

[bradgranath]

Any thoughts on this TBC? https://www.ebay.com/itm/32494051843...sAAOSwznhhnT8B

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bradgranath

Any thoughts on this TBC? https://www.ebay.com/itm/32494051843...sAAOSwznhhnT8B

No, don't get that.

That's a rackmount ("pizza box") unit, meant for broadcast sources. Your consumer analog VHS videotapes will confuse it, as it doesn't expect that sort of messy signal. It will usually work very badly, if at all.

Furthermore, these things are always beat to hell, not at all well kept. So even if you had broadcast sources, expect issues. Just look at the unit pictured in that auction. The rackmount is all damaged, probably from being bounced around on a concrete floor. Just old stuff in the way.

The seller is a recycler, and likely doesn't know a TBC from a toaster. "received as working" is code for "we have no idea if this thing works, but the person who dumped it off (random intern?) swore it did!" You have to know how to read between the lines.

No, no, no no no.

No.

[bradgranath]

I did read through your notes on choosing a TBC in that one thread. Prolly right, not worth it.

But... The rack ears don't look broken to me and all the edges and corners look sharp? So maybe not bounced? But maybe you're talkin about a different bit? And I'm using video8 tapes, not VHS. And this link to DPS marketing material describes it as being useful for transcoding consumer VHS and Hi8. http://www.broadcaststore.com/pdf/mo...99/DPS-290.pdf And the seller states that it's been tested and they accept returns. I'll admit to being skeptical, but it seems like it might be worth the risk of paying return shipping to find out.

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bradgranath

I did read through your notes on choosing a TBC in that one thread. Prolly right, not worth it.

But... The rack ears don't look broken to me and all the edges and corners look sharp? So maybe not bounced? But maybe you're talkin about a different bit? And I'm using video8 tapes, not VHS. And this link to DPS marketing material describes it as being useful for transcoding consumer VHS and Hi8. http://www.broadcaststore.com/pdf/mo...99/DPS-290.pdf And the seller states that it's been tested and they accept returns. I'll admit to being skeptical, but it seems like it might be worth the risk of paying return shipping to find out.

I've used multiple DPS/Leitch/Harris units, and they all disappoint. Perfect SP tapes from a prosumer camera may be fine. Or not. But anything more degraded, especially from a VCR, will falter signal-wise.

And again, that auction has code words.

And it does have obvious damage/abuse from the photos. The left ear is bent. Those rack mounts are thick metal, and you'd almost have to use a sledge hammer to beat it back. So when you see a bent ear, it was mistreated.

Rackmounts are also meant to be calibrated, not used as-is.

Beyond all that, I hate the massive size, and all the sharp metal edges. It's really not that easy to use outside of a rack.

There's also a very shady seller (group of sellers?) in Houston that needs to be avoided. The infamous "Houston VCR scammer" buys gear on eBay, and flips it for 2x+ the price. The problem with that is the original listing may be honest (not working, etc), and he'll list it as "working, tested" before he even has a chance to get his purchase in the mail. Too many members here have dealt with this a-hole. He's super rude, lies, and fights you for a return/refund. Expect your eBay hassle to be wasted time, and you won't get your money back for a month or more. He knows tricks to get his negative feedback removed, as members have have learned (their comments would disappear).

[bradgranath]

Hmm, perhaps it is bent. Was pretty sure that was barrel distortion from the wide angle as it appears fine in the other shots, but like ya said, better safe than sorry, 'specially with that geography.

[lordsmurf]

No, not distortion there, bent.