NO FUCKIN WAY. I love the normies and been subbed for hella years. I recently found my dad’s old handycam from the 90s and while searching for videos on hi8, vhs-c, etc I found this video. Small world! New (technically only for this channel) sub here.
I picked up a Panasonic AG-HMC151E AVCHD to scale down and record at respectable 720p, recording the new year party on something made some time ago really has its own charm to it. I enjoy the videos you produce and am learning a bunch from them. Keep up the good work and all the best for this year to come!
Hi8 sounds like a lotta fun. I'd love to find a camera that works well with liminal spaces, tips for complete beginners will definitely throw me down the film and photography rabbit hole.
Ooooh, now this is an explosion of nostalgia. These old cams are super difficult just like you described - their mechanics start to fail, the sensor has lost most of it's dynamic range, the batteries are done and the power connectors are * of course * some custom pinout, so you can't connect a powerpack directly into it (even if it has low DC input). I used to have a Video2000 camera and a deck for it that I got from my Dad, but the poor thing said a few bleeps and just died many years ago. : / I still have tons of stuff on VHS, all kinds of clips and recordings that are not available in digital format and for the transfer I use an old DV recorder deck (Sony DSR-11) - this is handy as it uses it's own sync for the composite video and cleans up some of the line noise and also gives a bigger frame area to sample than the normal RCA-to-PC converter boxes. Downside is that it uses firewire, which is an absolute PITA to try and get working in modern PCs. It's a crazy setup but results in a nice and clear image (that still has that VHS vibe). The resolution is tricky with analog formats. NTSC has the space for that 720 x 480 (768 x 576 scaled), but most consumer devices are half of that, especially cheaper cams. Horizontal resolution of less than 300 is not uncommon and vertical can be around 400 but usually is much much lower on the cameras. Even the higher end TV gear struggled to get 500 horizontal and it's amazing to watch when Ketty is recording you on the * mobile phone on her hand * that kicks out many times the resolution compared to the VHS. :D I still remember struggling with the limited resolution back in the day - we made an indie movie using all DV gear but damn, that resolution was just not usable in the long run (and DV format later died out pretty quickly as HD formats started rolling out). It was also horror to render anything out with the PCs of that time as it took me 8 hours to render out a basic AE project of about 1h30mins of material. The struggle was real. Awesome nostalgia throwback, cheers for this Chris!! o/
That was super cool! I wonder why the component out pro VCR smoothed the bejeesus out of your highlights. Is it a dynamic range thing? Also, I have that same hi8 camera! Crazy how it was pretty much identical to Blair witch. Very cool stuff bro. I’m more on the ‘make digital look like film’ side, but I appreciate this! Looking forward to more of your projects!
Right on man thanks for check it out. And I'm very curious to why that happened as well. I think it might be the difference in size. Like when I blow up the small the video there's no details in those highlights.
Most of the cheaper converters use a 'full range' sampling, which clips the higher values (value 235 becomes 255) and cores the black levels (16 becomes 0). This eats a big chunk of the dynamic range and was a major pain back in the day, if you got material from a client that didn't specify what range (what colorspace) it was recorded in. Some capture cards allow the user to adjust the sampling range in advanced settings, but they are usually only accessible from the capture software (OBS is a good one for this).
Just get a good super VHS-C camcorder. Super VHS-C was better than Hi8. The JVC Super VHS-C camcorders used something called Super VHS-C ET, and let you record in Super VHS quality on normal VHS-C tapes. With a good JVC Super VHS-C camcorder, the quality is not much less than Mini DV. There are actually some videos comparing Super VHS to Mini DV, and it is crazy just how close the quality is. Nonetheless, if I had to choose between a JVC Super VHS-C camcorder and a Hi8 camcorder, I'd choose the Super VHS-C. The Super VHS-C camcorders also have S Video like Hi8 camcorders.
