Speaking of DV boxes giving soft captures and crushing the white and blacks. Some of my Hi8 captures have dissapointed me because sometimes I've felt the my vhs captures have looked better in terms of color vibrancy and contrast. I mean of the same scenes in which the vhs is a second generation copy of the Hi8. So there's no way at all the vhs should look better but it kinda does.
Could it be that the DV compression takes away more from Hi8 than vhs because it's more detailed with more vibrant colors? I suppose the other possibility is that video noise and grain can give the false impression of more detail. An example of this is the old and new dvd's of "Breckfast at Tiffany's," right? Full res captures can be seen at dvdbeaver.com .