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Video 8 tape to pc transfer via Digital8 camera

raishbrook

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Posted March 30, 2011 at 1:08PM

Hello. I have a Hitachi VM-D865LE Digital 8 camcorder. I am trying to transfer analogue Video 8 tapes to my pc via firewire. The camera plays them fine but when connected to the pc, the picture is very blocky and unwatchable, not just pixelated. It plays digitally recorded footage ok but not analogue. I've used a couple of programs eg. Cyberlink Power Director and WinDV and the result is the same. I can watch the videos perfectly on the tv via the AV cable. My pc is running Windows 7 64 bit and i5 processor.

I have a lot of tapes of family gatherings etc. that I want to preserve on dvd. Thanks in advance, Alan

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marvin42

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Posted March 30, 2011 at 4:25PM

If you have a DVD recorder, record from the camera to a DVD then copy and paste to PC.

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raishbrook

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Posted March 30, 2011 at 9:06PM

Thanks for that. I have got a dvd recorder so that is definitely an option and then I could load the dvd onto the pc and edit the files, but I would just like to cut out that stage and load the footage onto the pc straight from the camera if there is a way because there is a fair bit of editing to be done eg. blanks bits, unwanted stuff etc. From all the reports I've read, it seems that it is common practise to copy analogue footage via the firewire on a digital 8 camera, it just doesn't seem to work on mine. It's not the end of the world if it can't be fixed but it would be nice. Thanks again for the suggestion.

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Proclaimer

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Posted March 30, 2011 at 11:14PM

I used to do this as a business and I used the Firewire cable to pull the video off the camera. I used Nero 9 for the transfer, recoding, editing and burning back to DVD.

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Lazarus The 2nd

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Posted March 31, 2011 at 2:52AM

Sounds like a driver problem,

Open Control Panel, Device Manager, Open up IEEE1394 Bus host controllers,

On mine, I had One Item, "NEC 1394 OHCI Compliant Host Controller",

Yours could be set to that or "1394 OHCI Compliant Host Controller"

If it is one or the other, Right Click on it,

Click on Update Driver Software...,

Click on Browse my Computer for Driver Software,

Click on Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer,

Click on "1394 OHCI Compliant Host Controller (Legacy),

Click Next,

Click Close.

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100andthirty

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Posted March 31, 2011 at 10:12PM

I have been doing this using a Sony Digital 8 camera. I discovered by accident that the camera would digitise analog tapes as they're played and send the contents via a firewire connection to the computer. I believe your Hitachi can do this. If you don't have firewire, you could buy a card quite cheaply. The quality is still dependent on the quality of the original tapes, but in my experience the in-camera digitising is reliable.

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raishbrook

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Posted April 1, 2011 at 12:50PM

Thanks to everyone who has responded, greatly appreciated. I tried what Lazarus The Second suggested and it seemed to work but unfortunately only once and I'm not able to recreate that success. I've tried different software and sequences of connecting the equipment/software, switching on and off etc. but no luck at all. It seems that when it did work after updating the driver, it would carry on working until something was switched off but then when restarted, back to square one. Even re-updating the driver didn't work.

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100andthirty

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Posted April 2, 2011 at 7:27AM

The process I use is to capture the video - I use facilities built into Sony Vegas Movie Studio - and only then worry about viewing it. What's coming from your camera is a digital stream and should be intact once its saved to a file.

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Ciaaig

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Posted October 9, 2011 at 12:36AM

The problem with the Hitachi is that it transfers video using the Texas Instruments 1394 OHCI Compliant Host Controller, NOT the Microsoft built in one.

I know, because i bought THAT same camera, and experienced EXACTLY the same thing. The problem NOW is finding THAT driver.strong text

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