On Tue, 31 May 2005, Soren Tirfing wrote:
> This is a request for an RTFM pointer, if I'm lucky...
The answer is less of a FM pointer than some (hopefully helpful)
hints & tips
> I have a bunch of Hi8 tapes that I would like to capture before they
> deteriorate too badly.
Excellent idea. Hi8 tapes hold up better with age than VHS tapes
but it's still a good thing to get the tapes converted as soon as
possible (for one thing while decks/camcorders are still available
that can read 8mm tapes).
What is the goal? To archive the tapes/preserve as closely as
possible (by placing the the data on digital tape - miniDV perhaps)?
Or is the goal to edit out and toss the parts that today appear
uninteresting/boring and then put "just the good parts" on DVD? Or
a combination of the two - place the entire tape "as is" on DVD
with chapter markers at the interesting scenes?
How were you planning on doing the captures? DV - with a analong->DV
converter such as the Canopus products (ADVC100, ADVC300, ...). Or
using a Digital8 camcorder (most of them can play analog/Hi8 tapes and
emit DV data on their IEEE1394a (iLink) port)? Or something higher
end such as the AJA Io-LA (http://www.aja.com/products_Io.html#iola)?
Or ???
> Capturing a tape to one giant file, or a few giant
> files, is easy. It is pain to edit the stuff based on that however.
Not a pain at all if you've got the right tools :-) Just scrub thru
the timeline, cut, scrub, cut, (optionally) delete.
Now for analog captures I have yet to encounter a tape that did not
require some color correction - either due to tape deterioration or
less than ideal lighting conditions (bad/incorrect whitebalance).
Were you planning on doing any colorcorrection/restoration to the
data?
Besides you're quite likely to end up doing something like that anyhow
if you're going to DVD. Depending what tools you use to create the
DVD you may not be able append multiple files together - so if you
were planning on encoding each 'scene' separately you may be in for a
big surprise. You'll likely end up in a situation where you'll want
a single monolithic encoded file to place the chapter points in.
> Is there an easy way to chop up the files, using readily available tools,
> based on automatic scene detection?
Some programs (such as Kino) do the 'scene detection' by means of the
timecode on the tape - each time you start/stop recording with a
miniDV camcorder the timecode info 'breaks'.
Offhand I don't know of a 'scene detection' program that works by
comparing frames. Maybe someone's written a program that can do that
and they'll chime in.
Cheers,
Steven Schultz
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