Converting 8mm and VHS to DVD/Digital format for Family Hockey Game DVD

[FlamingInfinity]

My dad has been running a yearly family reunion/hockey game for 30 years. 3 generations have played in the game thus far, and we're looking to try and make a special video for this upcoming year.

My dad has just about every game recorded on same way, be it 8mm, VHS, or the more recent 'mini tapes'. The problem with compiling this all, is trying to get all of the videos into a workable format for my uncle to compile, edit, and eventually render. We've thought about taking the games into a 3rd party, but from what we've heard it's quite expensive, especially for 29 tapes, and about an hour-ish a tape.

I did a quick google search and pulled up a DVD recorder? I'm usually pretty tech savvy, but haven't heard much about how reliable/quality it produces. Is there an easier way to just transfer the media onto the computer?

[SebC]

TV capture card?

[mykalberta]

Roxio VHS to DVD.

Dont let the VHS fool you, any output that fits into the USB provided input will work.

You will need a descent computer with a descent video card so it runs smooth, best $90 I ever spent for my dad. Only problem is now all the old videos are on easily watchable highlight reel DVDs. Also, just a tip, overlacing music on top of videos instead of using original audio is often times better than the original audio.

The Roxio software blows for editing, but the USB device is create for capturing. I have my dad setup with an i5 with 6 GB of RAM, Sata HD, 8800GT video card and everything works fine.

[HotHotHeat]

Honestly, unless you plan on making a hobby of this, just take it to a place like Black's Photography. Their prices aren't bad for something like this. Takes a couple weeks though.

[FlamingInfinity]

Originally Posted by HotHotHeat

Honestly, unless you plan on making a hobby of this, just take it to a place like Black's Photography. Their prices aren't bad for something like this. Takes a couple weeks though.

Thanks for the replies.

The games would be roughly an hour long, and with 29 'years' to go through, I think it'd get expensive real quick, which is something we don't want to get into. Even if it was about $30 a pop, we're looking at about $870, which is very steep.

Mykalberta I'll take a gander at the Roxio VHS to DVD like you suggested. The 8mm would be a problem to capture with it, but I think it was only a couple of years before my parents upgraded to a camcorder. They had to take half of the VCR with them, but they did it.

With VHS gone the way of the Beta, I think buying the software would be the best bet at the moment, if only to get everything transferred onto a more 'recent' medium.

My uncle has the latest version of a Corel?? editor installed as he was going to use that I think. It's no Final Cut Pro, but I'm sure once we've got the capture, any video editor would work.

Has anyone tried a DVD recorder at all? Just to keep all the options open.

[Roast Beef]

Originally Posted by FlamingInfinity

Thanks for the replies.

Has anyone tried a DVD recorder at all? Just to keep all the options open.

All you would be doing is transferring to another medium that would still have to be imported into the computer for editing. Even at the highest quality a DVD recorder would introduce compression artifacts such as macroblocking due to the jittery hand held movement of a video camera and the on the fly encoding of the dvd recorder. Your best bet is to find the clips that you want to use and import them directly into the computer in an uncompressed format. You can then edit and render those clips in a much higher quality than a DVD recorder could.

Even if you just wanted to transfer the entirety of the 30 years of games to DVD I wouldn't suggest the DVD recorder route. The quality loss would be too high.

[Titan]

I was in Blacks and asked about this. It is $35 per 2 hours of video. It is put onto a dvd but the guy did not know the format. Worst case you could just rip it into your computer to edit but you may get some loss.

[Jimmy Stang]

I converted a VHS to DVD for my wife's co-worker. I have a Lite-On 5045 which is a DVD recorder with a hard drive as well. Basically I used the standard RCA inputs from the VCR into the recorder and old-school dubbed it from one to the other. From there I was able to make a DVD. That was the output that she needed, but the next step for editing and whatnot would be to rip it onto your computer.

I like the looks of that USB device posted by mykalberta a little further up - it would be a lot more streamlined and would save you a step.