The last Hi8 tapes

I'm slowly transferring to harddisk the contents from a heap of old Video8, Hi8 and DV tapes shot over the past fifteen years. The Hi8 tapes are proving a bit of a problem. I don't own any fancy equipment for digitizing S-video, other than a now rather naff and antique Sony TRV18 camcorder which I then hookup to the Hi8 with a ridiculously overpriced Monster cable carrying stereo audio and S-video.

The low-fi, 100% analog setup

Some 8 or 9 years ago I had limited access to a Media 100 iFinish workstation, using which I converted some of the same Hi8 tapes to DV (with the same camcorder hooked up). Unfortunately much of the converted content has been lost, so now I have digitized the tapes again using the above shown solution.

Compare the footage I create this way with the old iFinish tapes, I was not particularly surprised to find the TRV18 S-video capture performing somewhat poorly against the by now antique but still pricey professional equipment. Maybe before I convert any more Hi8 material I should shop around for affordable better-quality S-video digitizers.

Started work on editing some old DV footage from the C&O canal:



This was shot on a GL1 and a VX1000. I wish I had been able to afford buying a VX back then. It was such a nice camera.