8 mm tape drives

Hi All
I have been trying to find info on playing back 8 mm digital video tapes from a sony handy cam which has started acting up playing jerky and skipping.I have 30 or 40 hours of my boys lives on tape and would like to preserve it. I have had the camera repaired once,the guy said that some capacitors had leaked on one of the power boards in the cam and had to be replaced.That was a new one on me,but it worked when I got it back. Anyways can I get a 8mm tape drive and stick it in my computer and transfer the tapes to dvd or cd? I was just reading the thread on how long data lasts on cd's and stuff I always thought it was pretty permanent.
TIA
Chris

I don't know of any 8mm drives that can go in a computer bay. I do have an 8mm vcr that I use for that purpose however. I am going to start copying all my old 8mm video tapes over in the next couple of weeks. As soon as I am done with that, the vcr goes up for sale as I will no longer have a need for it. I do see these for sale fairly regulary on ebay if you are interested.

They do make 8mm tapes for computers, but they handle data in a specific format. I have a 4 tape autochanger in my computer that I use to back up my files nightly.

They do make stand alone 8mm VCRs. That's your best bet. A used one should be fairly cheap since there are so many other options.

Daniel

8mm digital camcorders usually have a firewire output. You can transfer to your computer that way. The video fills about 10 GB per hour.