Is there a reason to buy a digital8 camcorder with TBC?
 

As in the title...

There's various digital8 camcorders, some mention TBC in their manuals and some don't.

If I already have a Hi8/Video 8 camcorder with TBC and other hardware to capture those tapes in virtualdub but need a Digital8 camcorder for Digital8 tapes, is there a reason to buy one that has a TBC? The Digital8 tapes get transferred using firewire as DV so there's no loss in quality.. Or am I thinking wrong?

All Digital8 models which support analog video playback have a TBC regardless if it is mentioned or not. Not all Digital8 models support analog Video8/Hi8 playback, but many do -- there's a complete list on Wikipedia.

Being able to play (and record) Digital8 tapes and output any video (analog or digital) via the FireWire port are the two big bonuses for having a Digital8 camcorder instead of Hi8.

Unless it is correctly labeled or you're the one who recorded it, you have no way of knowing whether an 8mm tape contains analog or digital recordings just by looking at it. With a Digital8 camcorder, you can pop in any 8mm tape and it will play (as long as it is the correct color system, NTSC or PAL). But an analog-only Hi8 camcorder would be oblivious to any Digital8 recordings which may exist on the tapes you're playing. (Sony recommended not mixing analog and digital recordings on the same tape, but there was nothing to prevent people from doing so.)

As for the quality of the FireWire DV output for digitizing analog video sources, it's not perfect, but it's close enough for most people. I'd say it gives you 85% of the quality of the best analog video capture setups, with 100% less hassle. There's nothing to worry about -- you just plug it in, and it works... every time. It's as simple as transferring a DV tape, and you can even use your computer to control the camcorder's transport functions (play, stop, rewind, fast-forward).

Yes, that's correct, If someone inherited a bunch of 8mm tapes and doesn't know what's on them the safest bet is to get a D8 camcorder or player with analog playback capability to be able to playback all of them as long as they contain recordings.

Now, there is a debate about whether V8 and Hi8 camcorders have a 100% analog path or not, but in my opinion it doesn't matter since TBC should be on all the time anyway.

There were plenty of analog Video8 and Hi8 camcorders which proudly boasted a "DIGITAL" badge on them because they contained digital signal processing and special effects.