[hart]

I have about 30 old hi8 analogue tapes of home movies that I'm trying to convert to DV and archive for later. I don't have time to make nice iMovies out of them right now.

I'm using my Canon DV camera as the conduit to convert the tapes. I have iMovie, obviously, and also Toast 6. I have a heap of blank DVD-Rs. I also have a large internal disk with 110GB of free space to work with.

I want to transfer the video uneditted so I can come back with imovie later or copy to VHS for gramma or whatever but basically preserve all my options with the material I have as I won't have the analogue camera to work with later (it's borrowed). What procedure should I follow here? My current thinking was import each tape to the internal disk (iMovie would activate during the import process) then burn the resulting files to DVD as data files if that makes sense.

Another factor I can't figure out is how do I preserve the original uneditted material when working with iMovie? Should I be retaining a copy seperate from the version iMovie is working with? I'm a nut for preserving original material before editting just in case.

I already did one "plug and burn" in Toast and the file names on the DVD don't look encouraging for importing the data into imovie.

Any help appreciated as I am a complete novice with DV and am perplexed about the workflow I should be following.

Thanks

[tr]

you might want to rethink your plan, because there's no way you're gonna be able to archive the straight DV files that get captured by iMovie to DVD-R. DV is huge: you'll need like 12GB's for 1 hour of footage.

so another way of thinking would be for you to import the footage, then convert to a format that is smaller than DV, like mpeg-1 or mpeg-2, and then burn to disk. but now, if you want to use iMovie to edit this stuff later, you might have a tough time, because i don't think iMovie accepts those file types, or if it does, it will have to convert.

tr

[hart]

first off, sorry, I tried to edit "amature" to be "amateur" but couldn't so any spelling mavens who feel driven to make fun of bad spelling consider it done and noted.

anyway...

will an hour of hi8 analogue tape result in a file as large as an hour of DV made on a DV camera?

I know it's a lot of stuff but I still need to solve my problem. I definitely can't go through and sort 8 years of video at the moment and I need to move it to a usable format now.

So what you're saying is that each 1 1/2 hour analogue tape is going to produce 3-4 DVDs worth of data which IS a bit much. On the other hand what ARE the other options. I suppose a cheaper and simpler option would be to buy 45 DV tapes and transfer the video from one cam to the other and use those as my archival copy for future editting.

What do other people do anyway? This can't be such an obscure problem.

[willab]

If you just want transfer to DVD, you might consider a stand alone recorder, but It sounds as though you just want to store them so that you can edit later. Hi8 will take the same amount of space as MiniDV does, because it is a file format independent of the tape. I would suggest transfering to miniDV tapes, but they will only go a maximum of one hour and Hi8 tapes are two hours. When you go to DVD from the computer it reencodes the footage mpeg2, the DVD format. This format is generally 2-3 gigs per hour, but you can not edit it iMovie. The cheapest/easiest thing to do is to buy your own cheap Hi8 camera. I usually buy from bhphotovideo.com, but they seem to be down right now. At Circuit City I found a Hi8 camera for 229. Stream in, edit, burn at your own convenience. http://www.circuitcity.com/detail.js...p;catoid=-8038

[dgbatchelor]

Originally posted by hart:
I suppose a cheaper and simpler option would be to buy 45 DV tapes and transfer the video from one cam to the other and use those as my archival copy for future editting.

This approach would get your analog videos converted to a standard video format (miniDV)... Anything else you do beyond this (e.g., convert to mpeg, etc.) is going to make things more difficult in the future (IMHO)...

If you shop around, you can get miniDV tapes for a reasonable price -- but realize the "value" of your "8 years" is far beyond the cost of a stack of tapes.

The good news with this approach is that there is no computer processing involved... just using your DV camera as a recording deck.

Good luck and let us know what you end up doing and the results.

-- Don --

[willab]

Originally posted by dgbatchelor:
This approach would get your analog videos converted to a standard video format (miniDV)... Anything else you do beyond this (e.g., convert to mpeg, etc.) is going to make things more difficult in the future (IMHO)...

If you shop around, you can get miniDV tapes for a reasonable price -- but realize the "value" of your "8 years" is far beyond the cost of a stack of tapes.

The good news with this approach is that there is no computer processing involved... just using your DV camera as a recording deck.

Good luck and let us know what you end up doing and the results.

-- Don --

As I said the problem with this is that one Hi8 takes two miniDV tapes.

[dgbatchelor]

Originally posted by willab:
The cheapest/easiest thing to do is to buy your own cheap Hi8 camera. I usually buy from bhphotovideo.com, but they seem to be down right now. At Circuit City I found a Hi8 camera for 229. Stream in, edit, burn at your own convenience. http://www.circuitcity.com/detail.js...p;catoid=-8038

hart --

Willab has a very good point. This project would need some 90 tapes for storage of the video before streaming to computer if you convert them all now to miniDV format and import/edit later. I've found tapes in bulk at approx. $3.50 per tape, but that's more than the price of an inexpensive Hi8 camera...

As willab points out, you'd be free to convert tapes at your convenience. If you buy a Hi8 camera when you're ready to start the transfer, when you're finished, you can give the camera away as a gift (to Gramma?) [or sell on eBay]...

It seems like you can't lose with willab's approach. The only potential problem would be a recording head misalignment problem between the two analog cameras...

[willab]

Originally posted by dgbatchelor:
hart --

Willab has a very good point. This project would need some 90 tapes for storage of the video before streaming to computer if you convert them all now to miniDV format and import/edit later. I've found tapes in bulk at approx. $3.50 per tape, but that's more than the price of an inexpensive Hi8 camera...

As willab points out, you'd be free to convert tapes at your convenience. If you buy a Hi8 camera when you're ready to start the transfer, when you're finished, you can give the camera away as a gift (to Gramma?) [or sell on eBay]...

It seems like you can't lose with willab's approach. The only potential problem would be a recording head misalignment problem between the two analog cameras...

What is a recording head misalignment, an d how does it happen? How likely is it to occur?

[dgbatchelor]

Originally posted by willab:
What is a recording head misalignment, an d how does it happen? How likely is it to occur?

The rotating recording/playback heads can be misaligned if there is a lot or wear, if the camera's quality is extremely poorly made, or if the camera has been physically damaged. (No different than for VCR decks... Some better VCR decks will automatically self-align... I doubt if many low-end cameras will self-align.)

Probability of occurrence? Low. I would expect that one could return/switch a new Hi8 camera if you could show that pre-recorded tapes wouldn't replay correctly. Obviously, your mileage will vary depending on retailer... It wouldn't hurt to ask about return policy before purchasing.

No reason to get a "fancy" Hi8 camera for this project -- (e.g., image stabilization, optical zoom, special effects, low light, etc.)... unless there was an interest in giving as a gift...

[fritzair]

Originally posted by dgbatchelor:
hart --

Willab has a very good point. This project would need some 90 tapes for storage of the video before streaming to computer if you convert them all now to miniDV format and import/edit later. I've found tapes in bulk at approx. $3.50 per tape, but that's more than the price of an inexpensive Hi8 camera...

As willab points out, you'd be free to convert tapes at your convenience. If you buy a Hi8 camera when you're ready to start the transfer, when you're finished, you can give the camera away as a gift (to Gramma?) [or sell on eBay]...

It seems like you can't lose with willab's approach. The only potential problem would be a recording head misalignment problem between the two analog cameras...

You can go directly into Toast 6 from your DV or Dig 8 and burn to disk. Or you can visit this link and try this ADS box It will encode to MPEG 2 directly in real time. This will result in smaller files.
Another way is to use both and edit fottage in iMovie return to camcorder on blank tape then process through box (from camcorder)to make MPEG 2, then burn to DVD. Lots of work for the number of videos you have.

[hart]

Oh the woes of updating old formats.

Unfortunately, it does look like actually buying a hi8 camera is the least cumbersome and potentially least expensive solution, even at $250 or so.

Of course, now I've got a pile of unused blank DVDs. But I suppose I'll need them when I get to distributing the beautifully editted movies I've made down the line.

Thank you for all the help.