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Anyone Hi8 Experts

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Is there anyone who knows a lot about the Hi8 video format? Or any sites that have a lot of coverage of it? I'm not talking development history or basic info here. I mean like what will yield the best playback, will a Hi8 vcr look a lot better than a camcorder?
I was also looking through the threads about capture cards and I'm more confused than ever. The best cards are the external ones because they can handle the data rate but then those use dv compression? And the really cheap ones get better quality because they use avi instead of mpeg?
http://www.originaltrilogy.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=12&threadid=6194&highlight_key=y&keyword1=capture%20card
http://www.originaltrilogy.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=12&threadid=5411&highlight_key=y&keyword1=capture%20card
http://www.originaltrilogy.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=12&threadid=4231&highlight_key=y&keyword1=capture%20card
http://www.originaltrilogy.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=12&threadid=1688&highlight_key=y&keyword1=capture%20card
http://www.originaltrilogy.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=12&threadid=1700&highlight_key=y&keyword1=capture%20card

Do these captures look any good?
It's at half size so that it doesn't show the interlace.
Camera: Sony 8mm TRV-32 Card: Pyro AV converter
http://www.uploadfile.info/uploads/a747e44724.jpg

Full size example. Image is interlaced but lack of movement means few jaggies. Same camera and settings.
http://www.uploadfile.info/uploads/9c8a425504.jpg

Using monster s-video cable from Nintendo Gamecube. It was an n64 game but I have the GCN bonus disc with the old games.
http://www.uploadfile.info/uploads/54b550fb0f.jpg

Take back the trilogy. Execute Order '77

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What you want to do is buy a better digital8 camcorder like the Sony TRV-330. It's a dead format but Ebay is your friend. Won't cost that much. The better Sony digital8s could play hi8 and 8mm, converting to digital on the fly.

You can then capture the video to your computer in DV format using firewire.


Really, any means of capturing hi8 video is fine since the video itself isn't super clear. It's better than VHS though.


The firewire connection on my digital8 camcorder has recently given out. I don't know what to do, as I used it all the time (8mm tape being cheaper than DV). Have to get a new digital8 I guess. If anyone has one they're not using ... =)
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I would think using a device that also functions as a video recorder to convert analog to digital would not work as well as a box that was made solely for that purpose, a converter. Some backward compatible machines may not play the "backward" format as well. For example, I've heard Playstation 1 games look worse on the PS2 than on the orginal Playstation.
I just wish people knew more about this stuff like they do with laserdisc players. It's amazing how much people know about the internal mechanics of those devices.
Oh and is there a better free image hosting site that places the images all the way to the left margin? It's annoying having them start above "Order" on my signature.

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There is nothing magic about capturing Hi-8 footage.
You simply need a quality capture card with SVideo inputs.
The standalone boxes tend to convert to DV on the fly, and have a habit of crushing the blacks and whites quite severely and giving relatively soft captures.

Hi-8 is similar to SuperVHS quality wise and has excellent colour resolution, so you really want to capture uncompressed via SVideo. You want to use SVideo as Hi-8 records the Chroma and Luma separately, so it makes sense to keep them separate.

The PDI Deluxe/Sweetspot card (internal PCI card) in conjunction with DScaler software for capture will give you pretty much as good as it gets results for Hi-8 capture.

For the best quality playback of Hi-8 via SVideo, the Sony industrial/broadcast decks are your best bet, but even their camcorders give pretty good playback.

It is impossible to say how good your captures look really as we can't see the source with our own eyes.

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To answer your other question, internal capture cards tend to give better results as you can capture in full range RGB using a 'lossless' codec.

What this means in simple terms is that instead of an external box compressing the video into 'blocks' and throwing away three quarters of the colour resolution, an internal card lets you keep all of that information and then you can compress it yourself with a lot more control when making a DVD of it or whatever.
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I did use a s-video connection for all captures (NTSC). I noticed a definite improvement in color vibrancy and contrast. I was hoping the Zelda screenshot would be a good reference. By Hi8 broadcast decks, do you mean just the vcr's that were only sold in Japan? I've seen them on Ebay. Do they have an "Edit" function like the camcorders did. It reduced generation loss when copying to vhs. When capturing, it reduced color bleeding and haloing.
What is DScaler software? Do you think most computer stores would know how to help set something up with all these things ready to go?
Composite capture. (Ignore the tracking line)
http://www.uploadfile.info/uploads/c03862b379.jpg

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DScaler is free software, just google it and you will find it.
By Broadcast decks I mean ones made by Sony for use at TV stations etc. Like the Sony 9850
http://www.surplusserver.com/Images/product/SONYEVO9150.JPG

e.g. http://www.surplusserver.com/products/Photo-Video/115/Sony_EVO-9850.html
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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 .

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I don't quite understand what you're saying.

It is true that:
Hi8 -> DV
should give better results than
Hi8 -> VHS -> DV

If you are finding otherwise, then something is wrong with your capturing.

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Yes that is what I'm saying. Of course I know that shouldn't be happening. And the capture settings are the same for both devices. The vhs captures may have more noise but they seem to have more color vibrancy and contrast. The Hi8 also seem to have worse over exposure in some bright areas. The vhs does not appear as blinding white.
What I was thinking was maybe dv captures of Hi8 lose more quality than dv captures of vhs.

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The camera and the VCR will have slightly different video output levels. It sounds to me like the settings in your capture device are calibrated to your VCR and not the camera. If you adjust the contrast/saturation settings to be optimized for capturing from the camera, then you should get better results.

Re-reading your first posts:
I looked up the Sony camera you mention (CCD-TRV32). It seems to be 8mm (not Hi8) and does not have an s-video output.
And I fixed your images for you. It was nothing to do with the hosting site, you had just implemented the [IMG] tags incorrectly.

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The TRV 32 is an excellent camera. The picture it gives looks like glorious technicolor film compared to my other cameras including miniDV (canon zr70). It is 8mm but I played the tape using a Hi8 camera with s-video. I'm not sure if it's possible to calibrate my current capture card but I wouldn't know how if it was. I've seen a picture of internal capture cards like the PDI deluxe and I don't understand how it can convert analog to digital on just the card. (Although since that's what was used for the X0, I trust it's pretty good.) I had thought that the external box was needed for digitization.
As for the images, the site I uploaded them to just had all this random script that when I pasted it here would somehow make the image appear. I tend to understand visuals better than text.
Is there any easy to use software that can deinterlace images?

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The capture software should have slider adjustments for brightness, contrast, hue, and saturation. I don't know if you can do any more calibration than that.

The digitising magic is done by a chip - called an "Analog to Digital Converter" or "A->D" chip (it measures the signal's voltage the appropriate number of times per second and spits out a digital signal). That chip needs to connect to other components (and connectors), so it is put onto a circuit board. A circuit board can be designed to fit into a box. Or the board, itself, can be a pci/isa card. Your typical box will also have hardware to convert the signal into mpeg - which takes away most of your options for processing the capture. A box's mpeg solution will be optimised for real-time speed, at the sacrifice of quality, so it will suck. When you use a capture card, its best to capture to Huffyuv, which is lossless. Then you end up with a gigantic file (80 Gigs per half-hour) that you can process to perfection.

Avisynth and Virtualdub have various methods for deinterlacing & Inverse Telecine. Your camcorder footage is probably 60 fields per second, so that leaves out Inverse Telecine (which is for progressive footage). Deinterlacers can do a fair job of blending or interpolating fields to get progressive. But since there's a lot of action in your footage, its probably better to leave it interlaced, unless you want to make it 60 frames per second, for the computer monitor or an advanced TV (standard NTSC tvs are 30 frames per second = 60 fields per second). I can't recommend plugins, I've only done IVTC (Inverse Telecine). There are forum threads (Doom9) for each plugin, and threads about general recomendations (Videohelp), where experienced people will talk over your head and tell you to read the often-ambiguous & sparse & often-undefined documentation, and tell you to experiment and learn. Not that I'm ranting or anything.

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I don't believe there are any of those adjustments on my capture card. I can adjust the brightness and contrast after it's been captured but now matter what I try it still seems more "gray" than the vhs dub.
I feel it would be more trouble to deinterlace footage than it could be worth. I know some ways can be bad. I only want to deinterlace still images so that I could post screenshots at larger sizes.
You've got me confused with the circuit board. Is this something you buy seperately or is it part of a motherboard, graphics card or something else?
...Oh I see, it's a chip that can either be in an external capture box or part of the capture card itself.
You don't need to worry about ranting about people on advanced video forums talking way over your head. I'm sure you're justified. And it's so helpful when they tell you to experiment with results. Cause who doesn't have a few hundred dollars to spend on an extra vcr that may or may not do better than what you already have?

Edit: Wait a minute. 80 gb for 30 minutes. That seems a little high. A 25 min video (of which the middle screenshot is taken from) is an avi file that's only 7.5 gb. Don't tell me dv compression can take away more than 7/8 the size and not leave any noticeable blockiness or compression artifacts.

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DV25 compression is about 5:1 (25Mbps) , so a little under 5 mins per GB or about 13GB per hour of footage. It is a constant bitrate which is why DVDs can take up less space for similar quality (they can use less than 5:1 for relatively static scenes for example)
Remember the colour information is compressed with NTSC DV25 down to 4:1:1 (from 4:4:4 or 4:2:2) so yes DV throws away a lot of information.
Remember even huffyuv uses compression, (although lossless), uncompressed 4:4:4 NTSC video comes in at over 30 Megabytes per second!

There is an (outdated but interesting) comparison of DV vs Hi8 here: http://www.adamwilt.com/DV-Hi8.html

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What exactly do the compression numbers mean? I would think 5:1 would mean that the file is compressed to 1/5 its size but the three numbers confuse me (4:1:1).
Anyways, I finally got an opportunity to get the screencaps from the vhs and Hi8 sources.

VHS 2nd generation
http://www.uploadfile.info/uploads/ae3b83509b.jpg[url=http://www.uploadfile.info][/url]

Hi8 1st generation, s-video cable used
http://www.uploadfile.info/uploads/a7197ff1c0.jpg[url=http://www.uploadfile.info][/url]

VHS
http://www.uploadfile.info/uploads/4b819458e4.jpg[url=http://www.uploadfile.info][/url]

Hi8
http://www.uploadfile.info/uploads/54353146b3.jpg[url=http://www.uploadfile.info][/url]

Basically, the vhs screens appear more 3 dimensional to me while the Hi8 screens look more washed out and flat. In the second set, the trees in the background may be sharper from the Hi8 but they stand out more in the vhs. I also like how the sky is not as overexposed from the vhs. Based on how that field looks to my eyes at the same time of the year (late October), the grass is too bright in the Hi8 screen again.
While the vhs appears to be smooth and as clear as possible from the tape, I see a lot of either small dots or noise within the Hi8 picture.
It's easier to spot on what should be solid colors. I can see it at half size too so I don't think it's due to interlaced picture. I highlighted the best examples. This is from my 8mm but I used a Hi8 camera with s-video for playback.
http://www.uploadfile.info/uploads/64bf7012de.jpg[url=http://www.uploadfile.info][/url]

Look very closely at Link and Zelda's faces.
http://www.uploadfile.info/uploads/5f7deb5684.jpg[url=http://www.uploadfile.info][/url]

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The difference is all in your calibration, the only reason the VHS ones look more '3D' is that the levels are closer to what they should be. You really need to calibrate your SVIDEO capture - can your camera create colourbars?
When calibrated the Hi8 pics look much more '3D' and have better colours and far more detail than the VHS pics, you can tell just by looking at them as is.

Also the missing 'dots' on the VHS copy are just missing detail, it is obvious from those pictures that the VHS copies have a *severe* detail loss compared to the Hi8 ones, if you blurred the crap out of the Hi8 captures to make them equal then the dots will disappear from the Hi-8 pictures as well (along with all the detail just like the VHS shots posted)
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I don't believe I can calibrate my capture card (Pyro A/V converter from ADS.) And I can't generate color bars with a Hi8 camcorder unless there is a Hi8 tape containing them somewhere. Where could I get the video essentials dvd? Would it be easy to record to vhs (or Hi8 if I got a vcr) or is that dvd copy protected?
I'm also a bit unsure of what to do about capturing. I don't want my video to be compressed but I don't think I can handle using up 8 times as much hard drive space than before. (If 30 min = 80 GB) What other options would I have? I wouldn't want any capture method that compresses by smearing detail or pixelizing. Is there anything very close to uncompressed quality that takes up WAY less space.

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Originally posted by: Knightmessenger
I'm also a bit unsure of what to do about capturing. I don't want my video to be compressed but I don't think I can handle using up 8 times as much hard drive space than before. (If 30 min = 80 GB) What other options would I have? I wouldn't want any capture method that compresses by smearing detail or pixelizing. Is there anything very close to uncompressed quality that takes up WAY less space.
You could use a lossless codec like huffyuv or Lagarith; 30 minutes of video will compress to about 10-15GB, and since it's lossless, it will be exactly the same quality as uncompressed video.

However, if your Pyro box is a DV device then you have no choice - you're stuck with using the DV codec.

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Are you serious, the lossless HuffYUV can compress 30 min to 10-15 gb? That's sweet! That's incredible, I thought a lossless codec would only be able to reduce the filesize to 3/4. But you're saying it could go a lot lower with no loss. That's sweet! That would take up hardly any more space than my current dv capturing mode. Would I have to render to HuffYUV or could it capture it like that right away in real time?

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Well, it might be more like 15-18GB for 30 min - it depends how compressible your source is.
And yes, huffyuv is fast enough so that any half decent PC should be able to capture to huffyuv in realtime.
But you do need a capture device that can supply raw video; a cheap PCI card will be OK but the external firewire boxes normally use the DV codec.

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Originally posted by: Knightmessenger
I don't believe I can calibrate my capture card (Pyro A/V converter from ADS.) And I can't generate color bars with a Hi8 camcorder unless there is a Hi8 tape containing them somewhere. Where could I get the video essentials dvd? Would it be easy to record to vhs (or Hi8 if I got a vcr) or is that dvd copy protected?
I'm also a bit unsure of what to do about capturing. I don't want my video to be compressed but I don't think I can handle using up 8 times as much hard drive space than before. (If 30 min = 80 GB) What other options would I have? I wouldn't want any capture method that compresses by smearing detail or pixelizing. Is there anything very close to uncompressed quality that takes up WAY less space.


Huffyuv averages about 4:1 or thereabouts, and as long as you have a reasonable PC it will do it in realtime. You really want to capture to a drive that is not your boot drive though for trouble free captures. It is a lossless codec, so think of it like .zip or .rar, it compresses the file without discarding any information at all.

If you can't calibrate your current capture system you can at least correct the levels after you capture, a really quick example is here with the two football images you posted where you thought the VHS image looked better than the Hi8 one.

A very quick levels adjustment and the hi8 image is now obviously far better than the VHS, the Hi8 images just needed to have their levels reset. (I had to use Gimp on the library computer so this is just a quick example)

Hi8 image
http://www.mudgee.net/ot/football2.png


VHS image
http://www.mudgee.net/ot/footballvhs.png


As for detail, to prove the point take a look at a closeup of the two faces. The VHS is on the leftt and the Hi8 is on the right

http://www.mudgee.net/ot/faces.png
The poor bugger on the left doesn't even have a mouth!

As for the video essentials DVD you can buy it anywhere, any online DVD retailer will have it, as will a lot of bricks and mortar DVD stores. I don't know if it is macrovision protected or not, I've never tried to tape it.
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Actually, I have played around with the brightness, contrast, gain and gamma using Vegas but I haven't been able to find to the right adjustment. The Hi8 image looks a lot better now. Does this have anything to do with the whole NTSC 7.5 IRE thing?

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Originally posted by: Knightmessenger
Are you serious, the lossless HuffYUV can compress 30 min to 10-15 gb? That's sweet! That's incredible, I thought a lossless codec would only be able to reduce the filesize to 3/4. But you're saying it could go a lot lower with no loss. That's sweet!
Yeah! That's great news! Sorry I mislead you, Knightmessenger. I either had a bad source of info, or misremembered it. (I didn't question it, because my cable provider used to give me a staticy, low-compressability signal, when I was capping short clips with Huffyuv, back in the day). Wow... That brings most of my potential projects a lot closer to the realm of plausibility.

Originally posted by: Knightmessenger
Actually, I have played around with the brightness, contrast, gain and gamma using Vegas but I haven't been able to find to the right adjustment. The Hi8 image looks a lot better now. Does this have anything to do with the whole NTSC 7.5 IRE thing?


The NTSC IRE does cut down on your flexability, some. But I know those settings are tricky. Usually looking at tiny, incremental adjustments. That's where the video essentials would come in handy, you could set one thing at a time, with confidence.

You'd gain a lot more by adjusting a Huffyuv capture, than DV, because lossily-compressed images don't have as much room left to tweak with.

And, of course, you'd get the best results if the capture was properly adjusted. Most capture card software will let you see the live results in a window, as you tweak. So it'd help to adjust your monitor... errr... Not sure if you can set the card (driver?) to keep those settings, though, if you end up using a different capture program than what came with the card... its been a while... well, at least you could use your changes as a rough guide.

You could rip the Video Essentials DVD, with DVD Decryptor, if you needed to rid of any Macrovision. Taping it would mean converting it to tape, and then converting it back, so it wouldn't be as perfect of a guide... Can the camcorder take a direct input from the dvd player? If you took that live feed, and adjusted from that...


By the way you asked about deinterlacing short clips. Camcorder's 60-fields-per-second can be blended into frames to fake deinterlacing. There's various great plugins for Avisynth, that can do all sorts of tracking and interpolation to get good results. But I couldn't give you any advice on which ones, or how to tweak them, at this stage. You can search videohelp.com forums to find them, at least. "Bobbers" is probably a good search term. It implys a crappy horizontal resize, but the newer ones do a lot more than that.

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