Capture 8mm video to my PC

[canuck]

That camera is so old that I could not even find a manual for it.
What kind of connections does it have? How have you connected to the device?

[denis]

i just connect the camera to the USB capture device wiht a audio/video input jack cable

[Ken Berry]

I hope you didn't just buy the Sony without first checking that it had the passthrough facility. And the point I was trying to make was that you put your 8 mm analogue into the Digital 8 and connect the latter to the computer with a firewire cable. This would be one with a smaller 4 pin plug at the camera end and the larger 6 pin plug at the computer end. USB does not enter into the picture. Firewire is totally different system, and as I said above your computer needs a Firewire card and port. In other words you need hardware and not software. The necessary Firewire driver comes as part of Windows, and when the Sony is connected via Firewire cable, Video Studio should automatically recognise it and allow capture in the excellent DV format when you put the camera in Play mode and play the tape in the camera.

Just to make my point again: forget USB for this entire process. At best it would allow you to capture your video as low quality streaming format. And forget your USB capture device too. The Sony and Firewire cable connection become the new capture device.

[denis]

Hi Ken,

I have never heard of passthrough facility. This is all challenging for me. So I have no idea if the 8mm camera has passthrough. I do not even know how to check if it has. I have no idea if I have firewire available on my PC. It seems that I would have to buy a card or something and have it installed on my computer.

I have attached part of the camera manual. It might tell you about passthrough.

Thank for your time and help.

[Ken Berry]

I'm sorry but I suspect that Digital 8 model is so old it does not even have a USB jack, let alone Firewire. There is no mention in that part of the Manual you posted, or even of the IEEE1394 protocol which also describes Firewire. Since Sony was one of the earliest companies to run Firewire, it would certainly mention this as a possibility if that camcorder had the facility.

Apart from my own model already mentioned, a very quick Google search (Sony Digital 8 passthrough) indicates a very large number of other models: see http://fccug.org/2222-10b%20How%20to%20 ... igital.pdf

Unfortunately, just to confirm what I have already said, I cannot see your model among that large list.

[denis]

Hi Ken,

Thanks for all your help. It looks like I will need to find another model camera if I am going to download the videos successfully.

Thanks again for your help

[BrianCee]

I am not sure I understand this topic - bear with me

denis has a standard 8mm video cassette and a camcorder to play it - the easiest thing in the world to connect it to a computer transfer and edit the video.

why are we talking about getting a camera with pass through - we are not talking Hi8 or HD video - so in effect the camera is just a video player - exactly the same as if I want to transfer some of my old VHS tapes to my computer - I put the VHS tape in my VHS player and use the phono plugs to connect via my USB grabber to my computer which then plugs via USB to my computer.

The output from the camera is analogue - just accept that and that you will capture as standard mpg ready to create DVD's without further alteration.

denis - - when I want to capture any of my old VHS tapes (akin to your 8mm tapes) I put my VHS tapes into a VHS player (akin to your camera) and connect the phono plugs from the player (camera) - to this device - - http://www.honestech.com/main/vhs-to-dvd-80-deluxe.asp

which is then connected by USB to my Win 8 computer - Using the software supplied with the device (not videostudio) I capture the video as an mpg file ready for importing to Videostudio to edit and burn DVDs

Yes I agree that USB device is not the cheapest one on the market - but I wasted quite a bit of money buying cheap devices before I found the Honestech device which I have found 100% reliable and producing a satisfactory quality video to watch - it's never going to be HD - but it is just as watchable as playing the original tapes direct to TV.

What could be easier

[canuck]

Hi Ken,

Thanks for all your help. It looks like I will need to find another model camera if I am going to download the videos successfully.

Thanks again for your help

Could you please describe exactly how you are connected from the camcorder to the capture device. describe the colour of the plugs, cables used, etc

I have an old Sony analog camcorder very similar to yours. It has 2 outputs: a yellow plug for video and a black plug for audio. The audio is mono so that you need a Y-splitter to give you the 2 channels to connect to the red & white audio plugs on the capture device.

Also are you capturing to PAL? Is that automatically selected by the capture software?

[Ken Berry]

Brian said:

...why are we talking about getting a camera with pass through - we are not talking Hi8 or HD video

Brian -- if you go back to the very beginning of this thread, denis's problem was that he had bought a USB analogue-to-digital capture device, but couldn't get it to work properly. Discussion then went on to other similar devices. Then I mentioned that my own solution was a Sony Digital 8 with passthrough and capture via Firewire which IMHO gave the best quality DV/AVI captures which were easy to edit and convert to DVD-compatible mpeg-2. I stressed that you needed both a Firewire card in your computer, and a Firewire cable, plus of course the Firewire/i.Link port (as Sony calls it) on the Digital 8, and also to make sure that if he found such a camcorder, that it had this passthrough facility. Unfortunately, it seems that denis simply bought an old Digital 8 without checking any of these things.

And thus we arrive back at the very beginning and discussion of USB capture devices...

[BrianCee]

but he didn't Ken - he bought an analogue to USB device - nothing about digital in it

the device he has is very very similar to the EZcap device - phonos in - out on a USB port - all he needs is software that works with it - not investing in new cameras and fiting firewire cards in computers

[Ken Berry]

His tapes are analogue 8 mm tapes, just like my large collection of analogue 8 mm tapes taken back in the late '80s and '90s... The USB device he bought was meant to convert them from analogue to digital and he couldn't get it to work. That's why I raised my experience with my own Sony Digital 8 camcorder with passthrough, which can happily play analogue 8 mm (and Hi8) tapes which can be captured as digital DV/AVI via Firewire. No more, no less. I have only one USB capture device which I was never happy with quality-wise, so it still sits somewhere in a drawer. I had no other USB device experience to offer him...

[denis]

Hi Brian,

I have attached a photo of my camera connections for what it is worth.

I appreciate all the help you and Ken are providing.

[BrianCee]

Did you photograph that in the mirror - looks better my way round - OK so you have one Video out and one audio out which is OK - you can duplicate the sound on both channels once you have the video in videostudio

[canuck]

Hi Brian,

I have attached a photo of my camera connections for what it is worth.

I appreciate all the help you and Ken are providing.

I have the connection plugs on my old Sony camcorder. I have no problem capturing but then I use the VHS2DVD hardware/software sold by Roxio (a Corel cpmpany)
So can you show the cable connections? Is the capture software setup to capture in PAL? A google search seems to indicate that the black&white capture problem may be related to the incorrect NTSCvsPAL setting.

[Ken Berry]

canuck -- this is what the device looks like, showing the cables pretty clearly (including an S-Video one): http://www.sabrent.com/category/tv-vide ... USB-AVCPT/