Converting Old Hi8 Video Tapes

[mikec82]

I have a box full of old Hi 8mm video tapes from the early 2000s. I am looking for the highest-quality (not necessarily fastest/easiest/cheapest) method to convert them to digital. Preferred final format would be 1080p mp4 files, so I know I'll have to upscale the video.

The video camera has rca and firewire 400 output. From what I understand, firewire 400 would be a compressed format, but I cannot find information on analog rca compression. The cable is joined at one end, and split into 1 video and 2 audio (yellow, white, red) on the other.

I've looked at something like the Blackmagic h264 Pro encoder (https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/h264prorecorder), which appears to do what I want. I'm not sure about the best way to send it out of the camera though - rca or firewire?

 

[molletts]

Are you sure they're Hi8, not Digital8? I've never seen a Hi8 camcorder with a digital (FireWire) output.

Assuming it is a D8 camcorder, the FireWire (or i-Link as Sony liked to call it) connection would be your best option. That will return the data in DV format, exactly as it is stored on the tapes. This will be in either 480i or 576i format, depending on whether you're in NTSC-land or PAL/SECAM-land. I think VirtualDub can dump DV into AVI files which you can then transcode using Handbrake. Upscaling is pretty pointless, in my opinion - just encode them at native resolution, deinterlacing them if you want progressive content. You can choose whether to frame-double them while deinterlacing or not depending on the type of content. You can either use the VirtualDub post-processing pipeline together with its frameserver mode or do the post with Handbrake.

 

[dorsai]

If it's a one time project you might consider taking them to a media professional and having them converted to DVD...plenty of places can do it and they'll even clean up the video for you if needed.

 

[mikec82]

Thank you both for the response. I'm NTSC. I use Premiere CC 2017, which can still capture AVI. I could then export to mp4. I'll just need to get a firewire port for my PC.