Other Converting old 8mm video tapes to a PC

I am reaching out to the infinite knowledge of the forum
I have about 20 Hi 8mm video tapes with kids birthdays , christmas , holidays etc.

Is there any way to get this on to a PC/Mac
Is there a piece of hardware I could buy

Many Thanks

 

I do not know what specialist hardware you could buy for this (I know it exists). But you could go the hacked way of using a 8mm video camera if you have one and either recording via USB if it has that option or via Firewire (I think firewaire is better as I believe it was added to the camera for this purpose). This is how I do it. My DVD recorder/player has a firewire port too which I use when I'm too lazy or don't need to edit the video.

Failing that you could buy a USB capture device and use the A/V out on the camera with it
http://www.it-echo.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Pinnacle_Dazzle_Video_Creator_Plus_HD.jpg

 

look on ebay for an 8mm video player/camera and use the normal video capture hardware

 

I have the original camera
Any suggestions for software for recording/editing the tapes

 

Does the camera have any outputs attached to it? I just bought and used an EasyCAP from ebay. The camera came with a 3.5mm jack to RCA, which I plugged into the RCA to USB on the EasyCAP. It came with software but I think I used a program made by Coral (Coral Studio I think) which when you play the tape it records it to an AVI file.

EDIT: Link to EasyCAP on ebay

 

I've done this quite a lot in the past although not for a few years now. I just connected the Camera(s) with the component cables to a DVD/HD recorder.

I used Premiere Elements to edit it but there's lots of free software available to do basic editing.

 

I found a few 8mm films when my gran passed away, I don't have the camera or any hardware so paid a local camera shop £3 per reel to convert them to DVD.

Might be looking around to see if there's a local place that can do it..

 

Given that they are Hi8 tapes, if you still have the camera, your best bet is probably an s-video cable out from the camera into a capture device, like the one linked by Cookie Monster above.

You'll get a much cleaner signal with S-Video than with composite.

EDIT: This is on the basis that the camera will unlikely have a FireWire port, given the tape type.

 

My old Sony Hi8 Video camera has firewire port on it and I just downloaded Adobe Premier Pro 2.0 free from adobe to export the video to my hard drive. Very simple to do and leaves it uncompressed ready to edit.

 

Camera model?

 

samsung VP L500

 

Looks like it only has video output via composite. Your solution would be to record or transfer it to a computer using something like the EasyCAP.