"BE" wrote in message
.. .
Hello,

My brother has a Samsung SCL906 Hi-8 video camera he said he'd give me,
but
he reports some problems that may or may not be fixable and a feature or
two
that I might not like. I don't know much about video cameras.

First, it has no "audio playback" - whatever that is. Does that mean that
it
can only record silent videos - no sound at all? Or is that just a
playback
feature?


If it doesn't record/play back audio, it's pretty much useless. However,
it's a freebie, you've nothing to lose!

He also told me that the recording is poor/grainy. Could this be because
the
recording head needs to be cleaned, or does it indicate something that
cannot be fixed by simple maintenance?


Could be dirty heads. As the video is grainy, and it apparently has no sound
at all, and given that 8mm equipment records sound solely via the drum (ie
no seperate analogue sound heads) it's possible the heads are severely
contaminated. A good clean with isopropyl alcohol and *proper" chamois head
cleaners might restore operation.

Be careful though, if you haven't done it before, chances are you'll wreck
the heads! The actual heads themselves are tiny little ferrite affairs seen
in the gap between the rotating upper drum and the static lower drum and are
about as delicate as the point of a sharpened pencil. The way I do ity is
moisten the chamois with alcohol, place it flatly on the drum as if it were
a tape, and gently rotate the drum so the heads brush against it. On
removing the chamois you should see dirty black lines where the head dumped
its filth. At a pinch, and this will horrify some techs- you can use a piece
of smooth paper like a bank note used in the same way, but I wouldn't
recommend to many cleaning sessions that way.

Don't forget to clean the other parts in the tape path with alcohol as well,
ie the capstan, pinch roller and all the tape guides. You can use a cotton
bud (Q tip or whatever you call it in your country) to clean these parts but
never ever put a cotton bud near the drum- it will snag and break off the
heads!

What about the connectivity issues of a Hi-8 camera in these days of
digital
cameras? Assuming I can get it working properly, what steps (or extra
steps)
are necessary to getting my final output fully digital?


The obvious way is to buy a VIVO card, or a graphics card with VIVO
connectivity (Video In Video Out), connect it to the camera and grab the
video that way, then compress it to a mpg or divx format. However, having
done this myself I have to say the results are rather disappointing. There's
just not enough processing power with the cards I've used to real time
capture decent quality video at TV resolutions. Maybe someone else can
recommend something capable.

Dave