Digitizing VHS & Hi8 Tapes: How Professionals Do It

before the days of SD cards and flash storage tape and film reign supreme if you were a kid in the 90s you probably remember at least one member of your family running around the house and probably every vacation with a camcorder held to their eye but let's be honest when was the last time you actually pulled out those old tapes and watched them does your TV even have the inputs needed to view them anymore if your answer is anything like mine it might be time to start digitizing them now you could of course just get a cheap USB capture card off of Amazon record it through the free OBS software on your PC and call it a day but for me let's face it that would be too easy you see someone else was also using tape around this time Hollywood back in the early days of non-linear editing professional Production Studios spent tons of time and money in the pursuit of perfecting the process of capturing their analog beta cam tapes in the highest quality possible and by 2006 most of that r d had trickled down into this the Aja Kona LG a prosumer capture card designed specifically to work with Apple's Power Mac G5 and Mac Pro computers which were the de facto choice for video editing at the time while this was originally a thirteen hundred dollar card I meant to go in a three thousand dollar computer shooter I've put the setup together over the years for about fifty dollars so today let's take it for a spin and see what this old dinosaur can do or if you're better off with a more modern solution the camera we'll be working with here today is my family's trusty Sony Handycam trv68 I've made a video about it quite a few years ago now and it's still going strong my mom picked this up in 2001 and it was responsible for capturing my family's Precious Moments all the way up until 2011. the Kona lhe installs into the Power Mac like any other PCI card does and once it's installed we'll plug in its large breakout cable this card can record pretty much any analog format for ADI to 1080p over composite s video and component and it'll Excel already video processing inside of Final Cut Pro 6. since my camera outputs both composite and this video at the same time I'm going to connect the S video output from the camera to a breakout cable that separates out the Luma and chroma signals from the S-Video connector which I will then run into the Luma and chroma inputs on the lag's breakout cable then I'll run composite and sound from the camera through a JVC video monitor I happen to have lying around and then I'll run the audio from that into one of the inputs on the Power Mac after everything is installed I'll launch the Azure configurator tool and adjust the settings for a 480i capture of s video then go into Final Cut Pro and select the log and transfer option which will bring up our capture settings and after adjusting our video and mic levels we are finally ready to begin because I have the JVC monitor hooked up I'm able to watch the footage and set the volume to my liking while it's being captured on the Power Mac you can see a live preview of what's being captured in Final Cut but the audio is muted and the frame rate is more of a slideshow so I prefer this solution if you're wondering I have Final Cut Pro 6 set up to capture in the prores video format which is still a Modern Standard that I can then move to my modern computer and edit this video for YouTube but you could certainly export it as a standard.mov file right from the Power Mac itself the footage you're watching now I captured using this method and it's a good example of what you can expect at the end of the day this camcorder only has around 320 lines of resolution so don't expect miracles but with this card this is pretty much the highest quality that is achievable for most high 8 cam now how many times I gotta tell you if you don't click when you're supposed to they get the big idea that they don't have to pay no more now you get back in that doc's office and get me that money welcome to my place the Grand Palace Hotel and saloon y'all adjusted time for the show so sit back relax and let my girls and I entertain oh and uh the bar is open for your Refreshments so stop in and have a drink if you haven't already okay [Music] [Music] I see [Music] that is [Music] cool this same setup can be used for any analog capture though not just home movies VHS tapes can be digitized with it too like I've done with Raiders here or if you've got an old game console like a Sega Genesis or Dreamcast this will capture their native output in the highest quality possible now at this point it's probably obvious that this setup isn't feasible for most people and that is perfectly fine while I've had a fun time putting this together and my family is very happy with the results you will get every bit of 95 percent of this quality or more using a modern capture card this video was more intended as a neat demonstration than a review of the product it is amazing though how well it's all worked after digitizing probably around 40 hours of content at this point neither the Power Mac or the Aja software crashed a single time and the whole process has honestly been every bit as efficient and reliable as I would expect from a professional grade tool one thing to keep in mind if you are thinking about trying this yourself just like the people in this footage this equipment is not getting any younger while I'm fairly Adept at electronic repair everything you see in this video is pushing 20 to 30 years old at this point while our Handycam has been nothing if not a Bastion of reliability so far shockingly even the batteries still hold a charge who knows how much longer that will last so if you're considering digitizing your family videos I would suggest you go for it while you still can maybe not with something this archaic and complicated but still once they're digitized you can upload them to something like iCloud where they'll be safe for a long time to come and can be easily shared with friends and family and I promise you will all get a blast out of re-watching them as always thank you guys so much for watching if you like the video hit like get subscribed and ring the bell so you don't miss out on any of my future videos and I will see you guys in the next one [Music] foreign

Channel: Griffen Sander

Views: 28,877

Keywords: vhs, hi8, analog capture, composite capture, s-video capture, svideo, Sony handycam digitizing, sony handycam, digitizing, how to digitize, aja kona lhe, powermac g5, Final Cut Pro 6, griffen sander, Digitizing VHS & Hi8 Tapes: How Professionals Do It

Id: AxcAaF8VfsI

Length: 7min 37sec (457 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 19 2023