Hi there, this is my first post so please be gentle!

I can see things have moved on since I bought my Canon Hi8 camcorder, but at the time it was the dogs whatsits...honest!

Having found the camcorder case and tapes in the loft recently it was great to see the footage again, so I decided to try and preserve it in a more stable format. I bought a Smart Disk Videosafe capture device with Arcsoft software and while it all works fine I can't believe how poor the quality is. From what I've read here, firewire is the way forward but while my pc is equipped, the Smart Disk is USB. If someome tells me I've wasted my money, I'll gladly take it back and get a refund.

I'm sure I read somewhere that Hi8 tapes will play through a Digital8 format camcorder and presumably that would give me a firewire connection. I do intend to buy a digital camcorder very soon as it made me realise just how much fun 'making movies' can be, especially with the kids more than happy to show off at any opportunity!

Any advice would be gratefully appreciated

Hi,

I did the same thing about a year ago, I had some 8mm tapes I wanted to put on to dvd. I tried quite a few different ways of doing it, but in the end bought a cheap second hand digital 8 camera from ebay and used the firewire connection to transfer to the pc. It worked a treat!

Matt

Thanks Matty Boy, advice is really appreciated, Out of interest when you say you bought a cheap camcorder, did you mean a known brand or one of those really cheap imports from Hong Kong or somewhere. Not sure if I'd trusdt one of those!

I dont think Hong Kong is into pirating ancient technology, Pirates in Hong Kong are more into getting stuff out before the technollogy is official X-D

__________________
It's not about what camera you use or how much it cost.

It's about what you shoot,
how you shot it,
and how you edit it :P

If you really are thinking of buying a new DV camera then many (even cheap ones) feature an analogue to digital pass through mode that will allow you to capture your old analogue footage via firewire. This may kill 2 birds with one stone for you.

PS - Yep, I would say the Smart Disk thing was a waste of money.