I have about 40+ Digital8/Hi8 tapes of home video, each atleast 1 hour long, that i want to transfer to DVD media. I tried doing one through a computer and it is quite a pain. I have to connect my Sony camcorder to the computer through a 1394 Firewire port, capture the whole tape in DV format (25 mbps) and have an hour long video of about 12-14 gigs (this process lasts the length of the video). Then i have to get a software to convert that DV to DVD format and burn it on a DVD.
I was hoping there could be a way i could eliminate the middleman i.e. computer and somehow record directly from my Camcorder to a DVD burner. If i got a DVD copier/recorder from the market, would it be possible to just connect the camera directly to the DVD recorder, through an RCA A/V cable maybe, and get the recording done?
I got myself a tv tuner and did it that way…
1 hour of viedo is 2 gigs on my hd. I hate this process…
You can try connecting your dvd-recorder to the tv and plug the camera in using the a/v cables. and press record while you are at it. But the thing i am not sure about is, will it take the same space as on computer or the length of the video
The 12 gigs/hour i mentioned is DV quality (25 megabits/s) used mainly for editing purposes. So i think whatever the DVD burner records will be based on the length, since im guessing the burner will have a fixed bitrate.
So i guess that would be the most hassle-free way.. record direct from the camcorder to the DVD burner.
yaa... but then again thats an investment which you have to think about, right? no?
i had a to think about buying hi8 or dvd camcorder.... but the dvd ones are too expensive these days. and you can only record 30 mints on it. and keep changing the disk everytime. but i was really dissappointed when i bought the hi8 because you will have to convert it first from analog to digital and then cut/edit and burn it... too lengthy
All I can suggest is buy a DVD recorder and record your movies directly to DVDs. The prosess is time consuming but once you are done with it, you won't have that many Hi8s laying around.
There are plenty of software available in the market that will do the mpg compression on the fly. That means that you do not have to download heavy uncompressed video from the camera to your HDD. They will do the conversion while connected to the camera and reading and converting the video in realtime. Off course, you need a good specification machine to do it properly otherwise, frame dropping will happen. Your DVD writer must have come with atleast one such software.
I need to convert 8mm Digital8 to DVD but is this the same as Hi8 to DVD. I got a quote from a company but wondered whether I should buy the equipment and do it myself as my camcorder is broken. Is this going to be a cheaper option for me? The quote i got is from these people video-to-dvd.co.uk it lists a load of types but not sure if mine fits in.
