hi 8 ?? Please help

[tyler d]

I have seen a sony v600 (Hi8)going quite cheap and I am thinking of buying it I would appreciate it if any one could tell what is the best way to playback and edit hi8? Can I use a normal vcr? Do I need a editing deck? Can I transfer it to my pc and use adobe or something to edit it?

If any one can answer the questions of a very confused ambitious man I would be very grateful

[miker]

probably the cheapest option would be to get a MJPEG capture card for your PC, else you'd be looking at LANC between edit decks and lots of frame slips. Although the more expensive Hi8 does have timecode.

Capture card (eg Matrox G200) around ?150 ?
Decent sized hard-drive (30GB) around ?150 ?

[anasazifilms]

I used Hi8 early last year... I transferred it to VHS and then via a video capture card (with in/out) put into onto my computer. But I think u can put it straight from the camera as well.

It's right about having a decent sized hard drive and the Matrox card is alright if you wanna spend a lot on it (I think it's more that ?150). I use a ATI All-In-Wonder 64 Bit card which has video in and out and TV capabilities.

So not only can I transfer the video onto my computer, I can watch TV as well while I surf. All I need now is a built in fridge!

Plus, it captures stills very well which I put on my website. The film I did on Hi-8 was called "The Project" and stills and other info is available on my website at www.anasazifilms.co.uk/theproject/

Hope I helped!

------------------
PHILIP HAWKINS

Anasazi Films LTD.
www.anasazifilms.co.uk

[tyler d]

Thank's Phil

The Project looks interesting unfortunately someone nabbed the camera before me.

I was wondering if it would be worth me buying a dv camera instead.

I am a complete beginner and want to get some experience and then shoot a short film that has rattled around my in head for sometime.

Is it easy to edit on the pc and would I need any other equipment apart from the camera, capture card, software and hard disk ?

Cheers

[marti-c]

hi tyler
Your choice of camera was quite a good one insofar as the sony v6000(not v600 as you stated) is a great performing camera. The beauty of this camera is the size (for stability) and the fact everything on the camera has manual overides.
As for editing then there are several ways to do it. The v6000 has composite in/out for vhs quality computer capturing, however this camera also has a better quality output commonly refered to as s-vhs out(but is actually a luminance/chrominance split output which seperates the brightness signal from the colour) If you buy a card like the Pinnacle dc30 then you have the facility to capture via this s-vhs lead. Again once you have edited it on the computer then you can output via the same syatem back into the v6000 and believe it or not the quality is very very good. Your other method which is not very flexible is to use a pinnacle studio 400 card which sort of acts as a controller to your camera via the l.a.n.c. input. This runs a normal composite(usually scart) from the camera directly into a vhs recorder and stop/starts the 2 machines at the corect time. This obviously isnt non-linear editing as you would like ........but the studio 400 is damn cheap.
If you go down the digital camera route then you will need a good camera with lots of manual overides( make sure its got a dv out and dv in sockets) then you will need a firewire interface card to get the stuff on your pc. The software you use to edit any footage will depend on your personal preference and whether it will be compatable with the capture card and not the camera. Most times you get some software bundled with the capture card but most people on this forum opt for premiere 5.1.

My advice to you is to decide what you can afford and make the commitment to either go down the hi-8 or digital route. If you havent bought a capture card yet then you should have more money to spend on a digital camera as the firewire card is much cheaper than a capture card.

Why not browse past postings from this board as this question does seem to raise itself quite often.

marti

[tyler d]

thanks

[tyler d]

Thanks Marti after reading that a couple of times I think I understood most of it I think I am going to save up some more cash and go for dv.

Cheers Mate