Newbie to 8mm scanning / conversion

[Nantawat Kittiwarakul]

I can't believe I really have to come back to this thread again (for the last time I hope😤).

There's absolutely no secret about DV & HDV capture process/workflow at all - it's all over the internet. Considering it as a darn common (and also obsolete) knowledge so I never bother to mention it in any detail. But if you insist...



By pure coincidence it happened to be a customer just sent me a miniDV tape asking for an .mp4 file of it. So it's just a matter of hooking up my camcorder to the installed firewire card in the pc, open the capture program, then start capturing. The result will be ready-to-edit .avi files transferred into the hard drive. Dump them into the preferred NLE and start editing...

That's it! That's ALL about DV/HDV workflow.

BTW both DV & HDV workflow will be practically the same, just only different in file type. And that works for both capturing recorded content on the tape, and to capture "live" from the camera. Capturing straight from firewire interface will also solve the display issue you encountered (and never figured out how to solve) on your HV20 as well. So HV20 is the VALID option - been there, done that, now retired it. Just DON'T capture from its HDMI OR analog output - use firewire interface and firewire interface only, then problem solved!

Working with GH5 is even easier since it will record .mp4 straight to the SD card. So it's just a matter of popping out the card, copying all recorded files to the hard drive, then starting the edit with whatever NLE of your choice right away. Once I relize the convenience of the file-based workflow I NEVER go back to tape-based (and analog video) stuff again, never.😒

One more time - there are several alternatives besides using analog video capture gear for cine film scanning, which will give vastly superior results than any analog SD stuff. Here is one example.

https://youtu.be/yStZmqdWDLA?si=K9CjMnJnlRhWLfjp

Hint: this is practically the same as my GH5 setup I'm using, which gives me this.

https://youtu.be/8-h47rpexLU?si=fxq-l9AIVU6fT01P
(So many more sample videos on my channel. Feel free to browse through it.)

PS I'm not a big fan of aggressive post-processing so it'll be only color correction and that's it. No noise reduction, no dust/scratch removal, no stabilization, just exactly what's already on the film only.

[Alwyn Adkins]

Calm down, all I was doing was asking.

Thanks for the tip re Firewire: in HDV mode, the HV20 will stream HDV to HDVSplit without that icon. I'll try to work out how to route the Super 8 audio into the camera so it goes into the video stream.

[Nantawat Kittiwarakul]

Thys de Wet Hi , had you eventually made the decision which camera & gear to be used?

[Thys de Wet]

Hi guys,
Thanx for all the info.
The DVx100 will be the vidcam that I'll use..

[Nantawat Kittiwarakul]

Hi guys,
Thanx for all the info.
The DVx100 will be the vidcam that I'll use..

Good choice!

While you're not yet ready for HD acquision & workflow, this camcorder is about as good as it gets for SD acquision. Spending 15-20$ more for Firewire hardware (the interface card & cable) and you'll then get most out of it. In the future if you have a chance to acquire a HDV camcorder, those Firewire hardware is still useful too.

Anyway once you've stepped up to file-based workflow with today's HD/4K camera, I'm dead certain that there'll be no turning back to SD environment ever! So I strongly suggest to keep all original films even after you're done the digitization with that DVX - you'll definitely re-digitize those films again in the future, for sure.

[Thys de Wet]

Thanx for the feedback Nantawat.

I just rediscovered some footage I took with a SD Panasonic in 2009, and chased the vids through Handbrake to semi-upscale, and I was quite surprised at the quality.

I m a bit of an 'as cheap as possble' guy. I switched to Linux Mint about 4 years ago. I use a Dell laptop from 2007 that has a Firewire connection to capture vids with Kino, and then bring the avi or dv files into my 'main' workhorse i7 Dell 3576, also running Linux Mint. I use KDEnLive as video editor.
For analog capture it's done on the i7 laptop.

My reason for using Linux Mint: I just got fed-up with Windows 10 eternal updates that sometimes updates and sometimes just sits there looking busy...
That old Dell E6400 also runs the latest version Linux Mint without missing a beat...

Before I retired, I was an IT systems administrator at a local university where we used Unix/Linux/MSWindows as platforms for the various IT systems.