[jacobush]

I concur, it's the best solution for analog Video-8 tapes. Buy a Digital-8 camcorder with DV. You may get a better picture with some kind of bespoke high-end rig with rebuilt camcorders and studio digitizing equipment, but for mere mortals, it's the best solution.

I can only add, that for me it worked best to capture the tape all in one go, and not try to start-stop the camera with DV control. Be it deteriorating tapes or whatever the cause, but the capture software had problems resuming the camera if it was ever paused.

[interestica]

Agreed - just letting the tape run for the duration is best. It's a shame that it has to be done in real-time. I don't see why (from a technical standpoint) the process couldn't be done at a faster speed. It's just that the hardware isn't made for it and there's not market. The analog-to-digital processing could be done by a faster chip or even software at this point. Something akin to the high-speed dubbing of analogue audio cassettes.

And it leads to that other challenge worth mentioning: Even though DV is technically a lossy format, it results in really large files.

[pontifier]

Funny... I've been contemplating a SLOWER than realtime tape digitizer. Something that would make multiple passes and reconstruct the magnetic domains on the tape with very high certainty.

[jacobush]

Yep. Especially a hacked VCR could be made to do this. If one taps the data from the spinning head directly, instead of relying on the VCR to process it into a proper composite signal, I'd say it's even realistic to do this.

Just run the tape at half or a quarter of the speed. The spinning helical head should still produce data. Then it's a matter of assembling it in software.