Suggestions...

lenwood wrote on 5/17/2006, 5:59 AM
What method/system is recommended for transfering 8mm tapes to digital? I recently spent 20+ hours transferrring my video via USB cable and began making a couple of movies but now it seems I should have used Firewire. I then read a post about transferring techniques that take into account future technologies like HD.

Resolution, format, etc. suggestions or a website resource is appreciated.

$'s are a concern so techiques I can do on my own without a large investment in equipment are greatly appreciated. I currently have a Sony 8mm digitial camcorder.

Thanks for your time!!!

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 5/17/2006, 6:36 AM
Don't worry about anything HD related because all your 8mm tapes are SD. Since you have a digital 8mm camcorder the best thing you can do is use that and transfer over firewire. It's fast, cheap, simple, and really there's no better way unless you want to spend tons of money, time, and enormous hard drive space by capturing uncompressed. Even then, i doubt you'd notice any improvement over DV capture through firewire.
lenwood wrote on 5/19/2006, 8:33 AM
First, thanks to Chienworks!!! His suggestions of switching to a Firewire connection from USB GREATLY increased my quality! Wow, what a difference.

Is it suggested to keep the files in the .avi format or convert to MPG-2? While a drop off in any compression is expected, I didn't notice any. This is for personal home movies. 24GB versus 2.4GB is a big dif.

Thank for everyone help!

Chienworks wrote on 5/19/2006, 8:50 AM
MPEG is considered a delivery format. Ideally it's used only as the final stage of a project. If you plan on doing any editing of your video files or using them in projects it's highly recommended to save them as DV AVI. There are two issues to consider.

1) MPEG is spacially compressed much more than DV. Each frame is stored in far fewer bits. This means that detail is lost and artifacts are increased. While you may not notice this much in the first generation, using MPEG files as a source in a project and rendering to MPEG again will increase the loss of quality dramatically. The second generation will be noticeably much worse.

2) MPEG is temporally compressed too. Most of the frames are incomplete and rely on being built up from changes to previous frames. This means that it can take a lot longer to generate an image of the frame as you move around on the timeline. You'll soon notice that editing an MPEG file feels very sluggish and painstaking compared to editing an AVI file.

Save your pocket change. It won't take you long to be able to afford a 320GB drive. That can store about 24 hours worth of DV AVI files.
Paul Mead wrote on 5/19/2006, 10:33 AM
I second the comment about disk space. Big, personal use (i.e., not fast and extra reliable pro quality) hard disks are getting really cheap. I just bought a 400gb drive for $US 160 at Best Buy. Not free, but, in my opinion dirt cheap. I figure that is enough to store away a good 30 hours of AVI.