Complete beginner just joined!
 

Greetings everyone, I am so excited about joining your splendid group. My planned project is to learn about video capture and editing. I inherited some hardware from my beloved uncle, who passed away last year. I have a Sony camcorder TRV66 for Hi8 , and a Sony handycam DCR TRV740. In addition I have this huge old pc from 1999 by Gateway 2000, the Destination TV PC. I took some pictures of its innards, it appears to have an ATI AIW card in it and some others. I hope its one of the ones considered good for video capture. In addition to reading and searching everything I can about video capture and processing from the sites archives, I hope somebody else knows about the Destination PC and whether or not it can serve as a quality capture device. In the future, I have some old family Hi8 films that I'd like to save to HDD and learn about how to correct defects and how best to preserve them. I read somewhere on this site that playing Hi8 recorded as analog on a compatible DCR and copying that to HDD via firewire is not a recommended practice because the video quality is reduced. I am hoping to learn enough so that I can make good conversions of Hi8 to HDD because I expect to do this regularly. i really like the Hi8 cameras and I expect to make films with them that I'd like to convert to HDD and store. I also have two really old family VHS tapes that I'm planning on sending to DF's experts for restoration. Well, thats it in a nutshell, I am so happy to join. My day job well and night job is as a researcher, so I hope to have time to join regularly!!:)

An antique? Does it still boot and run? Which OS does it have, WIN95?

http://news.cnet.com/Gateway-debuts-..._3-214896.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4WTJGBAfGA
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,821406,00.asp

IMHO Hi8 can be a nice retro format for fun, but tape is becoming more scarce and modern digital formats and camcorder are so far superior in terms of resolution, color presentation, low light capability, signal to noise, and processing/storage convenience. Hi8 (and the other analog formats) should not be considered for new capture/recording except perhaps as an exercise in reliving distant history. None are suitable for high definition or upscaling to HD.

Thanks for your reply to my very first post! Yes, the Gateway computer, as pictured, does boot and run.
I appreciate the links you sent. The Gateway destination TV PC that I possess is not quite as old as the model depicted in those links. Mine is a late 1999 model. It contains the following graphics cards:
3DFX BlackMagic 3D, Voodoo 2 type, card
ATI 109-46600-00 AV Connector C-Cube ZiVA PC TL P208 with two SVideo input connectors, two composite video input connectors, two composite audio input connectors, and a single composite video out, SVideo out, digital video out, and stereo audio out connectors.
All-in-Wonder PRO 8MB PCI NTSC video card with a Rage chipset.

I misplaced some monitor cables and so I could not check into its software at this moment, I am acquiring those now and will start checking what software is onboard. It is running Windows 98.
My main question is does this hardware provide high quality video capture or not? I am looking to learn about video capture, but I would like a quality set up in order to transfer the best quality for archiving and creating small project films. i searched the digitalfaq archives, but I have not seen these hardware described.
Yes, as anyone will attest, the quality of Hi8 is most certainly inferior to modern HD video. I respect your opinion on Hi8 surely. However, there is one factor regarding my interest in Hi8 that is also important. I am impoverished and these are the equipment that I have, that I have inherited. I do not mind creating new film projects with the Hi8 format since this is what I own now. It is more important for me to record precious memories with what I have, rather than not record anything because 'its just not HD'. I have 10 unopened Hi8 tapes. I intend to record new video using either the Hi8 or Digital 8 formats and then to capture these, transferring to a powered 3TB HDD. I am hoping that the abovementioned videcapture hardware has the capability to capture quality video well. In time, I will open my new video archives, presumably now stored as AVI, and edit them creating final film using a modern PC with Adobe Première CS4 that I own. The Hi8 format is hard to find, but I have plenty of tape, it is the only equipment I own now. i am already learning because of this site, once again thanks. i will seriously be joining Premium membership soon, its like going to college!!

I cannot speak to the specific hardware you have. Others here may be able to do so.

Be aware that Windows 98 had a significant limitation as to the drive size it could address. Windows 98SE increased this limit, but it still was substantially less than a TB. More like 128GB if memory serves.

Enjoy your adventures into Hi8.