I was actually surprised that NTSC deck showed any sort of discernible picture with a PAL tape. But it reminded me how I got really surprised, and I don't know if you ever experienced this, but when you play a PAL VHS tape on a NTSC only player or vice versa you usually get that scrambled mess because of the mismatched drum rotation, BUT, if you hook up that signal to some LCDs it can actually lock and sync to that picture! It will be displayed in black and white and with head noise because the linear speeds are different, but it can display a picture!

The little Digital 8 deck is indeed very cute. I used to own the mini-DV version of this standalone little deck, around 1999 when it was hard to get a DV camcorder with DV input enabled, in order to lay off my Final Cut edits from my Mac back onto DV tape. Very interesting video.

Thank you less confusion and more knowledge. Cheers

Great video. Thank you.

Excellent video. Thanks.

These Sony Digital8 camcorders (with analog playback capability) had been my "secret weapon" for video tape transferring for ages. Not only they would play most if not all 8mm tapes thrown in, but it will also have the AV->DV conversion function for converting external analog video input to DV stream. That would be very valuable for digitizing other analog tape format as well. Adding a few more miniDV camcorders to the mix, and I have all necessary capabilities covered.

very informative..thank you very much

I used to work somewhere that had a Sony EVO9800P Hi-8 Recorder and occasionally someone would bring in a Digital-8 tape for transfer. It did lead to some people thinking the tapes were blank as the digital signal played back on the analogue recorder just looked like snow, as if the tape was blank. Another device that can convert the Quasi PAL-60 video signal when playing an NTSC tape in a PAL deck is the Samsung SV4000 or SV5000 Worldwide VHS recorder. To recognise the modified signal on the input they have to be left in autodetect mode, and they think they're getting a PAL-M signal, but if manually selected to PAL-M the picture goes black/white. The auto detect mode is somehow locking onto this non-standard video signal. The output can then be set to NTSC to give the correct NTSC 3.58 video signal.

The GV-200 is a very nice machine, I have seen them recover some really bad tapes which were recorded on the horrible 180 min Sony Metal Evaporated tape, which were recorded in LP mode. There are other models like the GV-2000 which have a built in display but otherwise are exactly the same.

Some excellent Engrish on that Walkman box. :D

The instructions on the box are aimed at Brazil, Argentina and other South American markets. The instructions would make sense to them as PAL M and PAL N are PAL colour system with the chroma subcarrier set at 3.58 which is the NTSC frequency (N is in fact at 3.56 mhz if the PAL colour system is broadcast. System M whether NTSC or PAL is 525/60 and System N is 625/50. Your unit is not aimed at UK market and the unit is more likely aimed at corporate and processional non broadcast users who are assumed to understand the formats. Otherwise this is a great piece. I have 2 GV-S50 units 1 Pal and 1 Ntsc. I use these for recordings to use in my GV-9E which is PAL and my GV-500 which is NTSC. If it is music I record on the GV-500 as it offers hifi stereo sound. Keep up the good work. ( almost forgot P6 tapes cover both the 60hz AC and the 50 hz AC areas in Japan. It is a cheat but mafe it easy for people to make sure they had right tapes.) If you run the camcorder through a tbc does this not allow the computer software to continue digitizing with a blanked image? as I said, good stuff, thanks

The biggest advantage D8 had over miniDV was the tape length, there were 90 minute D8 tapes available, tha tis 135 minutes in LP mode, while miniDV only offered 80/120 tapes, not to mention backwards compatibility. Fortunately the 8mm tape format lived on in many other formats including audio professionals and computer data. As for mixing PAL and NTSC, I still cannot fully grasp the differance between "NTSC playback on PAL TV" and NTSC 4,43, theoretically there is a thread o digital faq with technical info, but it would be great if I could understand the differance. As for playing analog 8mm in D8 camcorder there is that funny discolouration problem of the right edge, no explanation on the issue whatsoeevr from Sony. Also, I have a great PDF comapring the features of several categories of D8 camcorders, if you're interested, it's in polish, but my friend from Vietnam sent me a version translated to english with some online tool. I own 828E, it's bottom loaded, so it's a pain to swap tapes when using tripod... And I paid PLN 400 for it, if anyone is reading this, don't pay more for a lower model. For transfering DV I use ScenalyzerLive, at ths point it's free abandonware, the last update was in 2006, I haven't tried Pinnacle. SCLive can split the recording based on the date on the fly to separate files during transfer and you can set the threshold of what the timecode differance is to be the limit for one file, for example you can have 1 second, so that every recording is separate file, or you can set 24h, so that all recordings from one day are in one file. SCLive will not stop, you can set the timeout for that as well, it might pause writing the data to computer and resume when the video comes back on tape, or it can write new file. HAve you never tried SCLive? I don't have to payse and play for every bit. With analog SCLive allows to cut the junk bits and join the segments into continuous file too. SCLive will also start new file when it encounters aspect ratio change. I'm on a hunt for DV and D8 videowalkman for years now. The discolouration problem appears only when playing 8mm tapes, it does not happen when using D8 as A/D converter from external analog signal, so Hi8 deck could be used for playback and the D8 will neatly conevrt to DV.

A budget alternative to the ACE for capturing for devices that output NTSC 4.43 or PAL60 is to pipe the video via a Pioneer dvd-recorder (DVR-_30 and newer models), or the Sony DVD/HDD recorders that share the guts with them (like RDR-HX750 and newer variants, older Sonys ar ecompletely different.) They are capable of handling NTSC 4.43/PAL60 input (in addition to standard NTSC/PAL/SECAM) and output in standard NTSC (or component/HDMI thought the latter has copy protection on it) on the outputs. They actually stabilize/TBC the video pretty decently too which is handy. (Note Don't think the dvd-recorder variants sold in the US has pal support or if they even were sold in the us) Doesn't work well for stuff with copy protection on it but that's not an issue with 8mm tapes. Those hitachi hi8/digital8 models have one nice thing about them in that they don't do the bluescreen on bad signal like Sony camcorders and some of the decks do which can be useful for recovering something tapes with damaged recordings. Not sure if it was clear in the video but the chroma flaw doesn't occur on NTSC playback in PAL camcorders either, only on PAL recordings. TBC and DNR is also inactive on NTSC playback in PAL ones. Not present in the older sony camcorders that didn't use a partial digital video process though those lack TBC and there is only like one or two years of those that seems to have escaped capacitor failure hell. I've seen some chroma edge issues on Sony 8mm vcrs too, such as the EV-C2000e I have though it's on the left and top on this and less noticeable. Seen similar in recordings/stills from other PAL VCRs too. It looks a bit different and less noticeable and it can be on different sides on those though and is probably a different cause given that they have different ICs and such.

I have an old Pinnacle Bendino PCI capture card (Win XP era) that supports NTSC 4.43. I can also feed an NTSC 3.58 or 4.43 signal into my Samsung DVD-HR775 DVD recorder, leave it on E-E mode, and it will convert the output signal to PAL, although the recorder itself will refuse to record from an NTSC source.

I've only had one customer in 8 years that had (unwittingly) recorded in NTSC, so I'm currently using the GV-D800E for PAL Video8/Hi8/digital8 which is similar but has the built in screen, handy for seeing whether the video is still running without having to keep your capture program at the fore. Interesting method of removing the overscan areas, just zoom the source and effectively crop them, instead I've chosen to add in black areas overlaid over the source video to simply mask them, my thinking being that if I start changing the source resolution so it's then different to the exported resolution by zooming into the source footage, there will be two issues, firstly, the vast majority of rendered pixels will be an interpolation of the now asynchronous source pixels, causing some additional drop in the level of detail, and also, it may increase my render time as extra cycles are being used to carry out that interpolation as opposed to a simpler 1:1 pixel correlation, not that it's quite that simple of course with compressed video which is most likely utilising chroma subsampling anyway, but it likely involves marginally less calculating overall.

I would be cautious calling capture into DV a lossless one before others start to point out that 4:1:1 or 4:2:0 for chroma is lossy. I though I'de menton that because I'm a regular follower of your channel and I value your hard work.

Well that box blurb was a fine example of Engrish at its worst. Fascinating format.

damn, i was looking at ntsc hi8 of gramlins on a sony EV-DT1 pal

Some of those DV8 cameras have a button cell to keep the time and date and go dead but I hope that it doesn't leak and cause trouble inside.

Uhh... these black lines on the TV is all due to this: The camera that records videos like this, and its' frame-rate. The frame-rate for PAL is either 25.000 FPS interlaced (which is what this video is rendered in, because, that's the standard frame-rate for PAL), or 50.000 FPS progressive (which is what the shots in this video were shot in). The frame-rate for NTSC, hovever, is either 29.970 FPS interlaced (like in the Video8 tape shown here), or 59.940 FPS progressive (like on my amount of videos that I made in MAGIX VEGAS Pro 16.0). The camcorders shown in this video are one PAL model, and a couple NTSC ones, but, of course, these videos, right from the very beginning, are of course, are in the PAL frame-rate of 25.000 FPS progressive, because that's the standard frame-rate used for most of the European Union, especially in the UK, which is where video99 is based in, and Australia, which is where Pizzabogan is based in. Only one video of yours is in 50.000 FPS progressive, which is in that of the Sony BVW-22P PAL Betacam SP office player. Pizzabogan's videos since his first 50.000 FPS video, are, of course, in 50.000 FPS, because, Australia, is a PAL region, so the frame-rate needed to match-up with the standard progressive frame-rate for PAL. Which came down to just -4.970 FPS interlaced or -9.940 FPS progressive of footage being LOST.

Is that a TechMoan mug I see in the background? lol

ive got two of those hitatchis. they both have exactly the same issue. exactly why i stick with sony.

The first person ive seen to actually mention firewire. THE HANDS DOWN BEST WAY TO CAPTURE VIDEO FROM THESE D8'S I have a TRV 340E NTSC from America. (I'm Australian)

The problem with the capture stopping when sections of blank tape are encountered - does this only happen when capturing NTSC recordings played back on a PAL camcorder? I use an old version of Adobe Premiere Pro to capture from DV, and I've not known it stop capturing when there are gaps in the recordng. Also it doesn't mind aspect ratio changes mid-capture; it just flags the entire file as whatever aspect ratio it started the capture at.

If you record on to an SD Card then burn it onto a DVD as an filename.mov it will actually play back on a DVD player.

9:52 So you do capture at 720x576 or 720x480 respecitvely, but then zoom into the image to get rid of all the "junk"? Wouldn't it make more sense to cut those bits off or to overlay them with black borders, as zooming would make the image blurrier? Also does that "brake" an interlaced video, as the lines do not match anymore if you zoom in? Thanks for answering in advance 😊

The text "Digital-8 PAL recording." appears twice: once at 20:54, and twice at 21:04.

Greetings with a mini dv camera that records in the pal system. I can play a cassette that was recorded in NTSC ?

I am considering purchasing a Sony CCD-TR330E. It is going cheaply, but advertised as only being Black & White (no reason given). I suspect it might be because it is NTSC, rather than PAL used here. If so, is there a simple converter to overcome this when replaying on a PAL TV, or converting to digital?

Can this GV-D200 record/play only audio? I have many 8mm tapes and camcorders, but picture quality is so poor, that I think that maybe those can be use as audio-recorders...

I have a Sony DCR TRV125E which works perfectly. I'm connecting it via FireWire port to my PC. I am so pleased with it that I bought another one. Unfortunately, the FireWire port does not work in this one. It's just not detected by the computer. It doesn't look physically damaged, all pins are in place and the soldering spots look correct. Any ideas how to fix it?

NTSC Never Twice the Same Color.

3:55 Wasn't it also called PAL60?

I didn't know that PAL camcorders could play NTSC tapes but not vice-versa, I wonder what's the reason for this to happen, are those camcorders especially designed for playing back both formats or is it something about the signals that make them compatible in one way but not in the other? And if the output signal is a mixture of both TV systems with the frame and line rate of NTSC but the color information in the PAL carrier frequency, how is that analog TV able to display the picture correctly? Is that TV set compatible with both systems?

TRV110E is a DIGITAL8 SP only camcorder and it won't playback LP Digital8 recordings but it will playback LP and SP analogue PAL recordings. I find that it will playback NTSC SP analogue recordings but not usefully, as the frame is shifted upwards a bit. The TRV110E will not playback NTSC LP analogue recordings. I also find that other Digital8 camcorders, such as the DCR-TRV725E, will playback NTSC SP analogue recordings fine and transfer them by firewire to computer but that they will not playback NTSC LP analogue recordings (just a lot of noise on the output).

i happen to have a CANON MV750S DV8 camcorder

i recapped my fx300 video8 camera (1992model) changed about 90 capacitors now the camera will work properly the ccd lens will work the tape deck but there is a problem the camera can play video but no sound also it won't record anything to the tape when you put it in in the camera mode to record the image will appear in the viewfinder and in the output to the TV it will not record video it will just erase the tape also the sound is also nowhere to be found.. very tiring and boring😅

More mysteries demystified, very good. I hope this is sort of relevant, if not, feel free to ignore. I'm trying to get a picture on a tiny sony viewfinder crt (ntsc based), playing something pal thru it. I need a converter, but being very green to tv stuff i'll probably buy the wrong thing. Will a cheap ebay converter box do it i wonder? Will these modern gizmos do composite signals?

Just got myself a TRV720E for free, because my buddy‘s kind of clearing the camera inventory of his grandpa that died last year. I was originally on the search for a later Hi8 TRV model, since I only have video8 at the moment. But then my buddy just knocked on the door and handed me the camera and I couldn‘t believe my luck. Didn‘t really have digital8 on my radar, since I already have a miniDV, but then I learned that evening that most digital8 cameras convert analog recordings to digital and output the stream via firewire and I really couldn‘t believe how lucky I got! (Still gonna need a Hi8 though for my collection!) One question I got for you, you might be able to answer it: Sony officially recommends to NOT use standard video8 tapes for digital8 recordings and rather hi8 tapes. Do you know the exact technical reason why? I would be very interested in why this is the case

hello i have a hitachi vm-e368e camcorder and it says pal-8 on the camera but i bought a Ntsc-8 cassete will it still work?

Do you have a recommendation for a player that has manual tracking? I've got a few tapes that appear to be recorded so far out of spec that they aren't being displayed one either of my camcorders (on video8/hi8 the other video8/hi8/digital8)

Hi very thanks for this video and I'm hop mit you TANKS

Hi vide099 I'm encountering an issue with my Sony DCR-TRV120E and Elgato Video Capture setup. I can play NTSC tapes fine directly on the camera, but when I try to capture them on my computer using the Elgato, I only get the audio without any video. Do you have any tips or potential fixes to help me get the video to show up on my computer? Thanks for your help!

hi all them 8 mm formats and with all the decks getting older as well no wonder the prices are getting silly

I think that the GV-D 200 is not slow enough for analogous PAL, since the data rate for D8 always requires a tape speed of 60 Hz. The concealment of color system compatibility is a core competence of SONY, even with "multinorm" devices that cannot do real SECAM