Hello there wonder if I could get some help.

I used to do wedding vids ages ago, using a Sony hi8 camera, and a tape shuffling deck for editing. It cost a fortune and never worked very well! Anyway I moved on and never did any editing for many a year.

Now I've decided I need to get my videos onto DVD. I have about 100 hours of Hi8, and about thirty recorded on mini dv tapes. The old Sony camera is still turning over, but the mini dv has died on me.

Before it died I bought a dead cheap video capture arrangement and downloaded some stuff from the camera onto my laptop. It came with some editing software and I spent a happy day cutting and chopping and was very pleased with the film I made. So much easier than tape shuffling.

My joy was short lived when I played the thing back on the DVD player (I had burned the disc on the laptop) The picture quality was awful! I had naively believed that moving into the digital age a perfect copy would result!!

I now need to know where the problem lies. Do I need a firewire connection and will this give a NOTICEABLY better finished product (My laptop doesn't have a f/w port by the way)

Presumably even if this is the answer then it will not solve the problem of the hi8 tapes. I'd reaally appreciate some advice on how to get the best quality copies from these, and what level of quality I can expect. The recordings I refered to earlier looked like a copy from one VHS to another! I should add that this is purely for family vids. I haven't got thousands (or even hundreds) of pounds to throw at this, but I'd really appreciate any advice.

Thanks a bunch

Read the two stickies above this thread and you will find a lot of answers to your questions.

__________________
Better than a poke in the eye with a pointy stick any day...