This is something I've like to do, maybe for nostalgia but also for practical purposes. I dug out my old 90s camcorder recently, bought a new battery and have been recording like it's 1993.
Hi! That's the kind of stuff I like to tinker with too!
Those Windows-related USB-dongles are particular picky about the hardware ...
If your Camcorder does sport FireWire, you may connect directly to your Mac and record Video-out through FireWire with either iMovie or QuickTime. I don't know, if a Hi8 Camcorder, which records analog video will offer that option, since we only owe a DV-Camcorder. Those ones send the DV-stream directly and unchanged through Firewire-connection and encoding to a lower-resolution / another video-format is the time-consuming process, that has to be done by the Mac later, after editing within iMovie. (BTW iMovie'06 is the most advanced version, which runs on PowerMacs and it offers the option to include 3rd-party filters and effect which makes iMovie to a real semi-professional video-editor.
If your Hi8-Camcorder has only Analog-Out (which is most likely), you'll have that cable with maybe Klinke 3,5-out on one side and a bunch of yellow/red/white chinch-connectors on the other side.
Then you'll need conversion from analog to digital, mainly by an external encoder box:
There are two choices of external-boxes still available at auctions etc. (encoding takes place within the external encocer-box):
1) Encoding from analog to MPEG2 (USB-connection): eyeTV 200 or 250+ (small video-file-size). The option to edit the output video is mainly limited to trim the footage by the included eyeTV-software. But it's fast and footage does take less space on your harddrive
2) Encoding from analog to DV (FireWire-connection): Canopus ADVC50/100/110. There are full options for editing the DV-footage with iMovie or FinalCut etc. But DV-footage does take a lot of space (15GB/h), editing is slow, depending on editing demands and converting the video to e.g. MPEG2 etc is also time consuming whilst performed through the Macs power of computing.
Going the "fast" eyeTV-MPEG-encoding method might also lead to asynchronous audio and video as soon as you start to edit the captured MPEG-footage. The reason is, that each Record/Stop-command on an analog-camcorder will produce a short gap of the video-signal, whilst the audio has no such a gap. Compressing analog video through old encoder-hardware will in worst case remove any time-signal, that connects the corresponding audio- and video-sequences, the video-gaps are removed and the video-footage gets shorter than the audio-capture. You won't notice that on the Master-version of the MPEG-encoded footage, but only after the first time of trimming or editing.
In 2000 I happend to owe a FAST/Dazzle "DVD-Master" video-capture-card for PC, that used to nag me with that kind of problems. (I should have better spent the money elsewhere ...)
There are solutions to repair the MPEG-stream, but they are time-consuming and capturing DV-footage prevents you from such a hassle.
Here some links:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/video-editing-solutions-for-ppc.2145300/#post-26613334
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...t-about-imovie06-howto.2042289/#post-24523807
http://www.offeryn.de/pvas_2_1.htm (software to repair corrupt MPEG2-stream containing video-gaps)
