Holy fucking shit these things can be so damn pissy. Figured if it could play back, and the direct output is good, it's probably got a good chance of recording right? Haha, nope! Some can't write well enough to overwrite the existing recordings, some just don't have sound for some reason (I sure as heck checked that on the direct out because I've had mic issues already), the digital8 cam that works great for rips just absolutely ties it's shoes together when asked to record a digital8 tape. And that's the one I've already cleaned the heads on too.
Ugh, going to spend all weekend debugging these things. I don't really want to buy a degausser at this point, I feel like doing a very heavy erase on the recorded tapes would help a lot. Maybe?
More thoughts. Bog standard Video8 really does look like poopy doo doo. I know I like the look of Shitty Video Quality but I for sure prefer how the sensor looks, not as much the tape. Hi8 gets out of the way just enough. Digital8 looks nice when it actually works.
I need to do replay on a CRT instead of the digital rips and see about the difference. That's always the secret about these things, they just do such a good job of covering up the bad bits and emphasizing the good bits. Don't need a nice one or anything either. But that requires having the TV and the equipment to play the tape back on, usually just a camcorder. Thanks to turbonerds, such things aren't damn near free like they used to be and should be.
Finally, color view finders are surprisingly sub optimal at times. They're color, but B/W viewfinders are usually CRT based, and B/W CRTs even at that size have WAY better detail than any LCD of the era. So it's way, way, way better for getting focus right and such. Having a B/W viewfinder in addition to a flip out LCD is by far the best option.