The DV format itself is higher resolution than Hi8. A cheaper DV (or Digital8) camera's optics and CCD become the limiting factor, not the format itself. As well, you don't lose more information during the transfer, since it's already in the digital domain.

A further benefit is that once you've captured your clips, and used some in a piece, as long as you keep around the right index files and DV tapes, you can delete the huge AVI files from you hard disk, and sometime later if you want to edit the project some more, you can re-capture the original footage or just what you used in the project. And since it's digital, the end result will be identical.

Finally, you can use the digital camera to capture from your analog camera, instead of using the capture device you currently have. In fact, nearly all of the Digital8 cameras can play Hi8 / 8mm tapes and convert to digital on-the-fly into the computer (note: you cannot "recapture" these clips as they have no timecode).

The hardest part is picking which device to get <g>.

///d@