Weird problem capturing DV from Hi8 tapes...

TeetimeNC wrote on 11/24/2014, 3:35 PM

I have some 10 year old Hi8 DV tapes and the camera they were recorded on. I've decided to list the camera (Sony TRV 120) on ebay and thought I would recapture a few of my tapes before it sells. When I play the tape back in the camera it looks acceptable. When I capture it using Vegas 12 Capture and play it on the Vegas timeline it is playing at approximately double speed. Vegas and Mediainfo both indicate the media is DV 720x480, 29.97fps lower field first. Vegas project properties are set to match the media.

There are other issues that I attribute to the old age of the tapes but I will mention them just in case it is somehow related and offers a clue. The audio, which seems ok in camera, is choppy in the captured video, and there are random flecks in the video - looks kinda like dropout.

Oh, one more thing - these tapes have been stored in a shoe box in my conditioned office for these ten years.

It isn't a big deal if I lose these tapes, but I am curious about what is going on here. A bigger concern: is there something wrong with the camera? I think I will buy a new Hi8 tape, record and capture to verify the camera is working before I list it.

An ideas what may be causing this?

/jerry

Back to post

Comments

johnmeyer wrote on 11/30/2014, 9:38 AM

WhereIsIt is a great program. I got it after it was recommended by many of the wonderful people in this forum. I couldn't live without it. The author responds quickly to problems and, although he can be a little prickly with his responses, he does provide good support.

I archive not only my removable and external drives, but also all of my computers attached to the network, and all laptops. This is about a dozen PCs. I also have a separate archive of all the client DVDs (I make copies of everything I send out). Thus, I can find any file on any DVD I've ever created. It takes about five seconds to archive a DVD, and the program spits it out as soon as it's done. I can go through a whole box of DVDs in just a few minutes.

The search engine in WhereIsIt is far better than almost any other file search engine I've used. Lots of options.

I don't use the advanced WhereIsIt features, like thumbnails for still photos, or CRC for files. Using these slows down the process of archiving, sometimes by a huge amount, and it dramatically increases the size of the archive file. However, those features are there, should you want to use them.

Jumping Rascal wrote on 11/30/2014, 9:53 AM

John's four suggestions were right on! Maybe Jerry should keep his camera instead of selling it in case of future requirement. I made the error of loaning out my Sony TRV460 Hi8 camera to a friend so that he could transfer a tape and when it was returned, I had difficulty transferring my own tapes (I suspect that the friend's tape was an old one that put dirt on my tape head or worse). With a very brief use of a Sony cleaner tape every session and several rewinds of the tape I do manage to get excellent DV files but certainly it isn't easy like before the loan out . One day the camera will give up the ghost so if I had a nicely working Hi8 camera, an increasingly scarce item, I'd sure keep it!! About 20 tapes to go to convert all of mine.

John_Cline wrote on 11/30/2014, 12:46 PM

Once again, +1 of John Meyer's assessment. I have over fifty terabytes of data, which comprises over two million files on 75 hard drives, it would be absolutely impossible to manage this much data without WhereIsIt. Even if WhereIsIt was $500, I would still consider it a bargain.

PeterDuke wrote on 11/30/2014, 5:37 PM

Another useful tool for on-line disks is Everything search engine. It is free and very fast after the initial scan of your disks.

http://www.voidtools.com/