eBooks Interkeys How-To adapter 8mm hi8 video format

The 8 mm video format refers informally to three related videocassette formats for the NTSC and PAL/SECAM television systems. These are the original Video8 format and its improved successor Hi8 (both analog), as well as a more recent digital format known as Digital8.

To transfer your 8mm/Hi8/miniDV tape to a VCR Cassette

- Plug the camcorder directly into the VCR, Not the TV.. (make sure to switch the VCR from tuner to AV inputs by hitting input on the vcr or changing the channel to get to AV line or input in)

- Plug the AV cables that came with your camera into the camera's output and into the VCR input jacks.

- Switch VCR to AV-in, Line in or AUX mode

- Put a blank vhs tape into the VCR, and put the camcorder tape (8mm, minidv etc) into the camcorder. PRESS Play on the camcorder and hit record on the VCR. Voila! you are done. Allow it to record the entire tape and you now have a backup copy on VHS of your camcorder tape.

If you don't have a 8mm or hi8 camcorder on hand, you could always purchase a used one for real cheap and resell it when you are done converting your tapes!

Transferring 8 mm footage to a computer for editing
Because Video8 and Hi8 are analog video formats, transferring either to computer requires digitization. One method is to feed the video signal to an analog capture card connected to the computer itself.

Another option involves the use of a pass-through adapter which outputs a digitized video signal in the industry standard DV format. Many consumer-level miniDV and Digital8 camcorders have this facility built-in. The DV signal can then be fed into a computer equipped with a firewire port.

A third route is to find a Digital8 camcorder which supports legacy playback of Video8 and Hi8, and which will output a digitized DV signal directly via its firewire port.

This will usually yield an improved image quality compared to the previously mentioned methods, and can offer the advantage of direct computer control over the tape transport, which is difficult (may require extra hardware) or impossible for the bridge method mentioned above.

Once on a computer, footage can be edited, processed and transferred to DVD, the Internet or back to tape.