Best 8mm Tape?

[bensmerglia]

Okay people, as some of you know I have been shopping around for a camera for some time. Well, I have changed my mind. I think I am going to keep with my Sony CCD-TRV66 Hi8 Camcorder now that I found a decent RCA to USB/Video Editing Software package.

I just don't have the money to be spending on new cameras and stuff. And plus, I'm just in 10th grade. By the time I'm at or have graduated from Film School, some big DV/Film advancements will have been made, and that will probably be the better time to buy a new camera.

Anyways, HERE'S my question. Does anyone know which 8mm tape is the best quality? I just want to make the best out of the supplies I already have. The sooner an answer, the better. I plan on buying this stuff before the upcoming week's end.

Thanks!

 

[Zensteve]

How old is your computer?

If it's a bit more recent than the camcorder, you should be able to get an analogue capture card or RCA to Firewire device. You'd need a hard drive of 7200rpm at least. (and preferably a second drive to capture to... doable with one, though)

The USB capture is not really fast enough to retain a high quality, and exporting back to tape would mean even more degradation.

As far as tape goes... I still buy a lot of HI-8 tape for Digi-8 cameras. I really can't tell the difference between the different brands, but I usually snap up any Sony 2-packs that I see... because they are cheap

 

[locust tree]

I use hi-8 tapes with the Digital 8 format... and my guess would be that differences in tape quality would be a lot less noticeable since it's a digital format.

But for longevity's sake... drop a little extra money to get the better tapes. I don't know much about the quirks of hi-8, but wouldn't it suck to not be able to watch the master recording of your first films 15 years down the road, because your cassetes were loaded with shit tape that got rubbed clean after 6 viewings?

Every tape company seems to make a really cheap hi-8 tape... but i just don't trust them. Most companies also make a slightly more expensive cassete that would say something like "premium" or "master" or "high grade." part of it is just an advertising ploy, but usually the better tapes are designed to hold up to the rigors of editing, pausing, etc.

Let me know if you come up with a good system for transferring analog footage onto your PC!