Help with 8mm video copying

[Jack Douglas]

I have finally dug out my old Sony 8mm camcorder and a bunch of tapes of Peru and Machu Pichu done in 1988. They haven't been played in 30 years and seem to be decent for the time and my two youngest are in the footage as well as other family so now I'd really like to get them in digital form (without spending too much at least until I've assessed exactly what is actually worthy).

So, can it work for me to just set my R5 on a tripod in front of the 4K TV and record in HD? If so are there any things to try to do that would be helpfull? I wondered if I recorded in 1080/60 if that would improve the hand held shakiness aspect somewhat.

 

[kaihp]

I would do a couple of short trials, before trying to record it all. The frame rates might be slightly off, so you could have what would appear as changing illumination. In particular, a high recording framerate could make the problem worse.

 

[Joules]

So, I have no experience working with 8 mm whatsoever due to my age. But I have digitized a few VHS tapes, some of which had footage on them that came from a 8mm camcorder.

Is that also what you are doing? If so, what's the output that you are using to get the footage to display on the TV? Have you considered buying a capture device that can directly grabs that signal and turns it into a digital one, like your TV is doing, and recording that on a PC? Depending on the format of your output, this isn't particularly expensive. This is what I have done, although the quality of my tapes is really quite poor by modern standards so I'm not giving up much by using a cheap converter.

As for filming the TV, watch out for aliasing of course, but old tapes don't have enough detail anyway, so slightly defocusing the lens does the trick.

I think tuning the TV and camera picture profiles so that you get a decent white balance and no clipping could take some experimentation.

As for the shaking, do you mean you want to edit the video afterwards with a software that can stabilize it? If so, make sure to record in a format your PC can handle. Unless you have a M1 device from apple, which has hardware support for the problematic codecs.

If you want to just have digital stabilization enabled while recording the screen, I would expect some odd results since the camera probably uses its sensors to determine if it is moving, and not just the image content. I'm not sure though, never used a Canon with that feature on a tripod. Worth a shot I guess.

 

[stevelee]

I have Elgato Video Capture. It came in a box with software and cables that plug into the video out of a VHS player and USB to the computer. If your 8mm player has RCA jacks, that should work. I have shot stills and video off my TV. I do it at night with lights turned off to avoid reflections. The TV has a 120 Hz refresh rate, so it is flashing the picture more than once. That perhaps helps with sync problems. I think I shot at 30p.

 

[Jack Douglas]

Thanks for the insights, guys. I thought maybe the first words I might hear would be, are you crazy? I will be prepared for some weird stuff and give it a try. I'm new to anything/everything video but now own Vegas Pro 18 and really want to do more video work. As a Senior, it's hard to get started whereas in years gone by I just tackled things without reservation.

For now it's just my Sony 8mm camcorder playing the 120 cassette while plugged into the analog video input of my 4K TV and of course it's terrible compared to R5 video but also still very enjoyable.

Jack

 

[Jack Douglas]

I have Elgato Video Capture. It came in a box with software and cables that plug into the video out of a VHS player and USB to the computer. If your 8mm player has RCA jacks, that should work. I have shot stills and video off my TV. I do it at night with lights turned off to avoid reflections. The TV has a 120 Hz refresh rate, so it is flashing the picture more than once. That perhaps helps with sync problems. I think I shot at 30p.

Thanks, that's one more idea. Yes, RCA video out.

 

[unfocused]

Before spending anything on equipment, I'd suggest you look into sending them off to be digitized. I did that a few years ago with some family slides that were mostly shot by my Dad in the 50s and 60s, as well as a few old 8mm films. It was far cheaper than investing in a lot of equipment and quality was much better than what I could produce without investing in expensive, professional quality equipment.

I just did a quick search and Kodak has a digitizing service – 10 films for $150 is the price they advertise on their website. There are many others.

 

[Jack Douglas]

Before spending anything on equipment, I'd suggest you look into sending them off to be digitized. I did that a few years ago with some family slides that were mostly shot by my Dad in the 50s and 60s, as well as a few old 8mm films. It was far cheaper than investing in a lot of equipment and quality was much better than what I could produce without investing in expensive, professional quality equipment.

I just did a quick search and Kodak has a digitizing service – 10 films for $150 is the price they advertise on their website. There are many others.

I think there is merit in your suggestion but not sure it fits my situation. My material from this Peruvian holiday is in serious need of editing. Like two hours should become fifteen minutes. There are many 120 cassettes, so off hand I had kind of dismissed the commercial route although maybe if I did something myself first it would more clearly define whether it made sense to have it professionally done. Slides are a different story.

Jack

 

[stevelee]

A quick look at Amazon shows video capture devices from $10 to $110 or so. Obviously you can spend more for pro equipment.

 

[unfocused]

I think there is merit in your suggestion but not sure it fits my situation. My material from this Peruvian holiday is in serious need of editing. Like two hours should become fifteen minutes. There are many 120 cassettes, so off hand I had kind of dismissed the commercial route although maybe if I did something myself first it would more clearly define whether it made sense to have it professionally done. Slides are a different story.

Jack

Makes sense. As I said, I was mostly working with slides, as my Dad was heavily into slide shows in the 60s. It was pretty easy to cull through those and eliminate the ones that were scenery and other sites and focus on the ones that had family in them (who really cares about pictures of Old Faithful from 50+ years ago?)

In your case, I was mostly thinking about the 8mm films, which would be very difficult to do with an in-home setup. I think VHS tapes would be time consuming, but not as hard. I did a quick search and it looks like there are lots of videos on YouTube that walk you through it. Here is one (I have no idea about the comparative quality of this particular one, but his demonstration seemed pretty clear and easy to do). The good news is that once they are digitized, it will be a snap to edit them in Premiere or another editing program.

 

[shire_guy]

I recently transferred all my Video 8 tapes to digital from my old Sony Handycam. I used a product from StarTech.com called 'USB Video Capture Cable - S-Video or Composite'. Very similar to Elgato Video Capture suggested by @stevelee which I looked at, but I don't think it was easily available here.
StarTech comes with Movavi video editing software which was a little old so I upgraded to a newer version (more cost ~A$60). Movavi also allows a free demo try. It worked quite good and I was able to do quite a bit of editing. The resultant quality was similar to the Handycam output direct to the TV.
I didn't try recording from the TV screen.

 

[Jack Douglas]

So, to be clear, the hardware actually digitizes any analog video signal directly via USB cable, so instead of the bother of using my camera with the TV I'd just feed my camcorder output via this cable to my computer hard drive? For the relatively small price, that seems to be the best bet.

Jack

 

[shire_guy]

So, to be clear, the hardware actually digitizes any analog video signal directly via USB cable, so instead of the bother of using my camera with the TV I'd just feed my camcorder output via this cable to my computer hard drive? For the relatively small price, that seems to be the best bet.

Jack

I am not technical enough to give you a definitive answer on that, sorry. I believe it is a combination of both the hardware and the video editor. Using the cables I was able to plug my Handycam into my PC's USB port. You will need a video editor that allows the recording of video from an external device. In my case (Movavi Video Editor Plus) the analog from the tapes was converted into a proprietary file format that I could only edit using the Movavi software. Once I had completed my edit I was able to save into a more generic format - I chose avi. I am not video orientated but it was like going from CR3 to JPG. For info I was able to digitize some VHS tapes I had using the same process.

I did look around for other video editors that allowed recording but with not much success for the price. Also given the StarTech cables came with the Movavi software, I thought maybe keeping it simple was the way to go. Apart from cutting, splicing and headers there was a limit what I could do with the quality of the video output - I guess that is a feature of 20yr old video.

I don't know what video editor Elgato Video Capture uses but I assume the process would be similar. If you go along this route I would try any free trials of the software. For me the tutorials on the editing side were essential.

 

[stevelee]

So, to be clear, the hardware actually digitizes any analog video signal directly via USB cable, so instead of the bother of using my camera with the TV I'd just feed my camcorder output via this cable to my computer hard drive? For the relatively small price, that seems to be the best bet.

Jack

That’s the way my Elgato works (more or less). It came with software that captures the signal and saves it as a video file that can be then edited in the software of your choice. (It might have some editing capability, but if so I didn’t pay any attention to it.) I use Final Cut Pro X, and my Mac has iMovie. As an Adobe subscriber, I also have Premiere. I’m more used to FCP X, but Premiere has color grading that seems more like what I am used to in Photoshop, so my software choice depends upon what I am doing. I don’t know whether the software still works in the Mac OS version I have now. If not, I can use my old Mac Pro that I keep around for using old software and because of its inputs.

So if you decide to buy something for the conversion, be sure to look at what is included and compatibility. I got the Elgato on short notice. A client of a friend had a VHS tape of when he had been interviewed on some Turner program or PM Magazine or something. He wanted the video to be available on his web site, so I digitized it for him. My fee covered the device cost and just a little more. (It was more of a favor than a job.)

Some months later the client called me from the airport before he left for Europe. He had appeared on a TV show on the local PBS station and wanted video of that. He didn’t know the name of the show or when the episode would air. I set the DVR to record episodes of the most likely show. The second try was right. Output from the cable box was analog only, so I decided to shoot video off the TV. That worked really well. So I have experience doing it both ways. My guess is that you will get better quality with a device like the Elgato for your project.

 

[Jack Douglas]

I am not technical enough to give you a definitive answer on that, sorry. I believe it is a combination of both the hardware and the video editor. Using the cables I was able to plug my Handycam into my PC's USB port. You will need a video editor that allows the recording of video from an external device. In my case (Movavi Video Editor Plus) the analog from the tapes was converted into a proprietary file format that I could only edit using the Movavi software. Once I had completed my edit I was able to save into a more generic format - I chose avi. I am not video orientated but it was like going from CR3 to JPG. For info I was able to digitize some VHS tapes I had using the same process.

I did look around for other video editors that allowed recording but with not much success for the price. Also given the StarTech cables came with the Movavi software, I thought maybe keeping it simple was the way to go. Apart from cutting, splicing and headers there was a limit what I could do with the quality of the video output - I guess that is a feature of 20yr old video.

I don't know what video editor Elgato Video Capture uses but I assume the process would be similar. If you go along this route I would try any free trials of the software. For me the tutorials on the editing side were essential.

Thanks, that helps quite a bit. I was hopping it would simply be .MOV or some such format from the converter. I'll have to do more investigating. As mentioned initially, I have Vegas Pro but so far haven't seriously learned it. Sometimes my aging brain feels like what my parents told me it would eventually. >)

Jack

 

[Jack Douglas]

That’s the way my Elgato works (more or less). It came with software that captures the signal and saves it as a video file that can be then edited in the software of your choice. (It might have some editing capability, but if so I didn’t pay any attention to it.) I use Final Cut Pro X, and my Mac has iMovie. As an Adobe subscriber, I also have Premiere. I’m more used to FCP X, but Premiere has color grading that seems more like what I am used to in Photoshop, so my software choice depends upon what I am doing. I don’t know whether the software still works in the Mac OS version I have now. If not, I can use my old Mac Pro that I keep around for using old software and because of its inputs.

So if you decide to buy something for the conversion, be sure to look at what is included and compatibility. I got the Elgato on short notice. A client of a friend had a VHS tape of when he had been interviewed on some Turner program or PM Magazine or something. He wanted the video to be available on his web site, so I digitized it for him. My fee covered the device cost and just a little more. (It was more of a favor than a job.)

Some months later the client called me from the airport before he left for Europe. He had appeared on a TV show on the local PBS station and wanted video of that. He didn’t know the name of the show or when the episode would air. I set the DVR to record episodes of the most likely show. The second try was right. Output from the cable box was analog only, so I decided to shoot video off the TV. That worked really well. So I have experience doing it both ways. My guess is that you will get better quality with a device like the Elgato for your project.

There were comments on that video the guy did on Elgato that were mostly positive except for some audio complaints and one person started asking about it being interlaced and whatever and it sounded like it was less that ideal, but the quality of 8mm in the first place is not very good so ?? What digital output format did you have to work with? I'm still not clear on that.

Jack

 

[dcm]

Transferred 100+ hrs of family video on VHS and Sony Hi-8 tapes to digital years ago. Video capture on Mac/PC wasn't all that great at the time - I tried a couple of tools. Hard drives were pretty expensive and DVD made more sense for a storage medium. Tools have improved and hard drives are cheaper these days.

At the time I picked up a Sony VRD-MC5 to transfer directly to DVD - still have it. The Sony is a self contained unit with analog inputs to record from different sources that worked well for my purposes and handled the bulk processing. Push record, start the player, and come back when it is done to start the next one. I had a playable DVD for the TV and a digital source for editing in iMovie. I cloned them so my daughters had complete video history of their childhood.

As noted, analog tapes are lower quality than the digital recording is capable so YMMV, just as SD sources don't look as good in HD. I found that I got a better signal from my Hi8 player than the recorder. I also found differences in output quality of the VHS players and recorders so I ended up with a high quality player (6 heads) to record from. Not sure you have as many options these days.

My brother-in-law recorded old B&W family 8mm films using a my Hi8 recorder using a small projection box. Then used the Sony unit to transfer them to DVD. These were obviously of lower quality given the source, but just as good as watching it on an old projector without all of the hassle.

When I retire I might find the time to edit the movies down into small clips for my daughters and granddaughters. In the meantime, my granddaughters like to watch their mom and aunt grow up on TV.

 

[stevelee]

There were comments on that video the guy did on Elgato that were mostly positive except for some audio complaints and one person started asking about it being interlaced and whatever and it sounded like it was less that ideal, but the quality of 8mm in the first place is not very good so ?? What digital output format did you have to work with? I'm still not clear on that.

Jack

I’d have to look up the original file on an old hard drive. But it was something standard that FCP X opened directly. Maybe the software gave me a choice of how to save it. It has been a few years since I have used it. I didn’t notice any audio problems. VHS is interlaced, so I guess the analog signal is equivalent to 480i. I would expect the 8mm video output to be similar, and the audio may well be better than VHS. So expect to wind up with a 640x480 video. That was fine for posting on a web page, but probably looks awful blown up on a 60”+ 4K TV.

 

[Jack Douglas]

I’d have to look up the original file on an old hard drive. But it was something standard that FCP X opened directly. Maybe the software gave me a choice of how to save it. It has been a few years since I have used it. I didn’t notice any audio problems. VHS is interlaced, so I guess the analog signal is equivalent to 480i. I would expect the 8mm video output to be similar, and the audio may well be better than VHS. So expect to wind up with a 640x480 video. That was fine for posting on a web page, but probably looks awful blown up on a 60”+ 4K TV.

It looks just fine... from 50 feet. It is bad but the "memory" aspect is still good.

I'm thinking I'm going to give the, video of the TV with my camera, a try and then decide unless someone comes up with a super alternative. Elgato probably is a good choice if I decide to spend the few dollars. So, thanks to all for your ideas.

Jack

 

[Del Paso]

I hate you all for reminding me that I still have to digitize 45 years of Kodachrome slides....