Importing Old Footage. . .

Hi All,

I have serveral hours of old family video shot on 8mm video. I have FC Express and it refuses to import any of the video. I am trying to import on a new Digital 8 Camcorder. The newer footage will not work either. But I can import both vintages using iMovie. But the only draw back there is converting the audio. 1 hour and 30 minutes of video and audio took 9 hours to convert. 99.9% of that time was to convert the audio. The video seems to be compatible from iMovie to FC Express.

Wanted to know if there is some way to capture video and audio from my old tapes with out having to do this conversion?

My hardware is a Mac Mini with 1GB RAM and 2 200GB firewire drives. No problems with dropped frames or play back. Works well but very slow at audio re-rendering.

-Scott

Can't help you unless you tell us what process you're using in Final Cut Express. What are your Audio/Video settings? How are you connecting the 8mm and Digital-8 cameras to your computer? What do you mean it "refuses" to import -- what does it say?

Hi Derek,

Thanks for the quick reply.

I am using a SONY digital 8 that can play back both the newer digital 8 tapes and can play the older tapes (circa 1991-1997). The camera is connected in tandem with my 2 fire wire drives.

FC Express is version 1.01

When I open the capture window in FC Express, the camera responds to all the transport commands. When I start the tape playing the picture shows up on my monitor, and in the capture window. Then I click on the "new" button and then another window pops up that is a large square and says in the bottom "Waiting for Timecode. Device must be in VTR mode when device is enabled. (press 'esc' to abort) The tape doesn't have a timecode so hence, nothing happens.

On the newer tapes I have set in and out points for FC Express to capture from and when the camera rewinds, it always goes beyond the 'in' point and keeps rewinding.

But have no problem capturing in iMovie, but wanted to see if there is a way to capture with out having to convert the audio which is very time consuming.

Hope all this made sense.

-Scott

Just tested putting in a digital 8 tape and capturing by clicking the "new" button vs. the "clip" button and it worked just fine. No conversion!

But still doesn't help the problem with capturing the older tapes.

-Scott

Set your Device Preset to "Non-Controllable" and you should be able to override the lack of timecode. If you're into this project for the long haul, though, I'd suggest redubbing those old tapes to a timecoded source before you work with them.

Hi Derek,

Thank for the advice.

Is the "Device Preset" a FC Pro feature? I can't seem to find it in FC Express.

-Scott

Use the DV Converter setting and manually control the camera.



All the best,

Tom

Oops, just found the setting under "Easy Setup" option under the apple menu. It's called "DV- NTSC 48KHz DV-Converter". There is not automatic control of the camera but the capture is perfect. No conversion just perfectly captured footage ready to edit.

Thank you so much for the tip. You have saved me many hours of time.

-Scott

Hi Tom,

Didn't see you post before making my last post. Thanks for the info. This option was kinda hard to find. But found it under the Apple menu!

-Scott