I am at a point of confusion and a little frustration.

I want to do the following:

1. Convert my old VHS and 8mm tapes to DVDs
2. Be able to edit some of them at a later date.

My thoughts up to this point are this:

A. I could go buy a DVD recorder (like the Cyberhome 1600, $99) and plug my video players/camera into it and convert all of my tapes.

B. Purchase Pinnacle MovieBox or Dazzle (any other suggestions) and then capture the video and then save it, then output it to DVD.

My question is this, I think that option A seems the easiest and most straight forward way of converting my tapes, but once they are converted to DVD can I then "bring in" that digital data into my Pinnacle Studio DV software (that I allready have) somehow someway? Or any other for that matter? If not, then I guess I have to go with option B. Yes/No, any thoughts?

ok...first things first....do you have AV in on your camrea??...if not then yes convert them to DVD and at a later date by a cheap DVD ripper

if you already have studio, check ebay to see if you can get just the av/dv pci card. dunno if you can though. i thought bout doing thatm but only have one pci slot left and would (eventually) need to firewire ports.

The easiest way to archive to DVD is, as you say, using a standalone DVD recorder. For convieniance and cost, this can't be beaten.

The quality is also reported as good. In all honesty, it'll be the cheapest option given the cost/quality ratio. Editing footage taken from a DVD often proves difficult for a lot of people. There's two choices:

1) Buy an editing application such as Womble MPEG Wizard and edit the VOB files from the DVD, or convert the VOB files on the DVD to DV AVI files for editing in your existing application. You can use freeware software to convert, but this takes time (and as they say time in money, will result in a another cost). So you'll have to add this to the cost of the DVD recorder.

2) If you're going down the PC route, I'd strongly suggest you spend around £200+ on a dedicated analogue to digital converter such as the ADVC110. This ensures A/V sycnch and record in DV. DV is a dream to edit, but takes up a lot of space. 3.6MB for every second.

So, lets take the straight to DVD or analouge to DVD test!

a) What existing software do you have (editing and dvd authoring)
b) what is you absolute maximum budget
c) how much editing do you want to do
d) how much experience do you have of editing
e) how much hard drive space do you have
f) how many tapes do you need to archive

Answer those questions and I'll recommend the best solution (and I'm gonna turn this into a guide!)

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a) Pinnacle Studio DV version 1.2.6
b) Good question, about $250 might be a good number for me.
c) On about half, I don't want to do anything but make a copy, and on the other half it would be moderate to a lot.
d) I have done several week long projects with Studio not i feel secure in what I do know, if that answers your question or not. I don't get paid for any of it, my projects are just my own.
e) Right now I have a dedicated 100 Gig HD just for editing (and at $50 for 160 Gig i can get more)
f) I have about 20 VHS tapes and about 40 8mm--analog--tapes (I do have a new Hi8 digital camera, but those tapes I can and have delt with allready)

(I think I like the idea of burning them all to DVD then getting some "ripper??" to convert the VOB file to something i can edit in Studio. If the quality is the same.)

I am eager to hear what you have to say, and thanks!

On balance, I say archive straight to DVD. You simply have way too much video to capture to DV for editing. At 3.6MB/s, that's 3.6*60*60*60 = 648GB (assuming each tape is 1 hour).

That way you can get the majority of it on DVD, then it's on to editing those VOB files...

As you have so much video, you won't want to convert to another format first, so you'll want to edit in MPEG (VOB files are MPEG, and you'll have a few VOB files per DVD). You will lose quality be editing in MPEG (due to the lossy nature of the codec), but it won't be a show stopper and most people won't notice.

So your shopping list will include:

1) DVD recorder (for archiving)
2) MPEG Editing Software (or an MPEG plugin for your current software - I believe Studio Plus v.9 does MPEG editing)
3) DVD authoring Software (if you don't already have it)

For editing, simply copy the VOB files on the disc to your harddrive. Most people will frown on me for suggesting this, but believe me it's the quickest, easiest and cheapest way of archiving footage to DVD.

If you don't fancy editing in MPEG, you could at a later date invest in a dedicated analogue to DV convertor for your PC, but this is waaaaaaaaaay overkill for archiving straight to DVD without editing.

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you were talking about a freeware vid converting software.....can you point on the direction of one?! EVERY one I've came across you have to buy in order get rid of the watermark.

VirtualDubMod for MPEG.

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Just to update you all, I went ahead and purcheased a CyberHome 1600 DVD recorder from BestBuy--$100 (I have one of their DVD players and like it, so felt comfortable in that brand.)

I made a copy of one of my older 8mm tapes (not Hi) and it worked on both a -R and a +R (the manual only says that +R will work) and the playback looks as good as the video tape.

Now, to try and edit that VOB file. I'll look at that suggested program.

I'll keep updating my progress, in case anyone is interested.

Always good to hear feedback

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