Archiving old analogue video tapes

I've had my Hi8 CCD-TR101 since 1992 and also have over a hundred hours of home movies with my kids and family growing up. I chose the CCD-TR101 because it has RC Timecode. This feature puts the date and time on the tape as it is recording, together with the tape counter, which can then be viewed by pushing the DATA button, or the DATE(+) or TIME(NEXT) buttons on the TV screeen.

A few years ago I realized that it would soon be time to archive all of my Hi8 data to the next generation of media. The upcoming high densities of the new optical formats like Blu-ray looked very appealing. Although there were lots of solutions for the audio and video capture, there was nothing that transfered the dates and times of the scenes as well, which is something that an archivist such as myself didn't want to lose.

In fact, it actually turns out that neither Sony, nor anyone else, had a way to transfer the dates and times, other than viewing each tape and manually writting down the the tape counter and the date and time.

So to answer your 3rd question, Dr. Jamie, "is there a better way to do this", here is an idea. After capturing the A/V, you might consider also "logging" your Hi8 tapes in order to help get them organized chronologically. The www.octochron.com web site gives more details on a tool I have recently developed (possibly more for myself than others) and also lists which Sony Hi8 camcorder models have the required RC Timecode feature (if you still have your CCD-TRV101 then you are OK):

"Hi8DateTime will index and log a Hi8 tape by producing a list of scenes, their start and end timecodes (HH:MM:SS), their recording date, and the start and end time of day in under 15 minutes elapsed time ...". It also creates subtitles that you can optionally turn on and off when viewed with Windows Media Player. I know how time consuming video archival projects can be, and hope that this bit of automation may help.

However, I am still waiting for a Blu-ray writer for sale locally in Toronto, and at a reasonable price, before I proceed with archiving the bulk of my Hi8 home movies. Dr. Jamie, what has been your approach so far? Have you put it off, or have you taken an alternative route?

Walter Berndl