I have a camcorder that records onto mini-dv tapes. I'm not very savvy with all the new technology out there, but I would like to know what I need to transfer the images on my tapes to a DVD. I can play them back on my VCR, but I want to move them to DVD format. What kind of player do I need to do this? And can something like that be done on a computer as well? Thanks in advance.

Capture and save as DV-AVI. Standalone DVD player are not able to play DV-AVI, so this would be strictly computer data backup.

If you just want to author DVDs from your DV tapes, there are multiple options:

If you own a computer:
- Sony, Pinnacle, ULead and Nero all have great solutions via DVD authoring software and most will support DV capturing. All you need is the software, a IEEE1394 (aka "Firewire") cable and connection to your computer and a DVD burner + media of course. :)
- If you happen to have Vista Premium or Ultimate, you can use the capture wizard to move a tape directly to DVD, or use DVDMaker to author menus and chose your clips (all included in the OS and easy to use). You will also need to a cable and Firewire input to do so.
- I'm sure a Mac has the equivalent functionality with iLife.

If you want to bypass the computer altogether, something like the Sony VRD-MC5 may be a great option(http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10151&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665185948&SR=sony_search_seo&SQS=mc5). It's about $180 on the market and lets you connect your DV camcorder directly to it. You would just need the cable and the media in this case.

Unlike Ungermann, I wouldn't suggest you keep your data in DV-AVI format. Every tape will take about 12GB of HDD space and it won't help you enjoying them outside of your computer. Since you're not computer savvy, I gather that you don't have an HTPC connected to your main TV and redundant harddrives for your data. So I would suggest you go with the tape->DVD solutions above. I would also keep your tapes in a safe and dry place as backup (and not re-use them) and copy your DVDs once in a while (maybe every 4-5 years).

I have the same archiving issue - want to archive bunch of tapes to DVD in original quality. Since each tape is worth about 12GB, I need a good (free) utility to split the file losslessly into 3 chunks, so that I can archive them to a DVD+/-R. Any help appreciated. Thanks a lot.

I have the same archiving issue - want to archive bunch of tapes to DVD in original quality. Since each tape is worth about 12GB, I need a good (free) utility to split the file losslessly into 3 chunks, so that I can archive them to a DVD+/-R. Any help appreciated. Thanks a lot.

If you have Windows XP or Vista, you can use MovieMaker to do this for free. Just import the DV avi files (or capture them using the wizard), split them are you like (prolly around the 20 minutes line) and put each of them in turn on a timeline and export it as DV (with the same aspect ratio and file format "NTSC" or "PAL" than your source). This will copy losslessly and do it fast. You can split on capture too via the manual capture option in the capture wizard.

Most editing softwares should be able to split DV losslessly.

Also most NLEs allow to split clips by scene, so if your scenes are shorter than 20 minutes you will not have to cut files, instead you will get lots of separate files after capture.

Only saving in original format (DV-AVI on Windows platform) preserves full original quality.

If you have Windows XP or Vista, you can use MovieMaker to do this for free. Just import the DV avi files (or capture them using the wizard), split them are you like (prolly around the 20 minutes line) and put each of them in turn on a timeline and export it as DV (with the same aspect ratio and file format "NTSC" or "PAL" than your source). This will copy losslessly and do it fast. You can split on capture too via the manual capture option in the capture wizard.

Most editing softwares should be able to split DV losslessly.

Bit wary of moviemaker. I once tried to export an edited 16:9 DV-AVI file back to tape and the transferred video was 4:3 when the read the tape back. Not sure what had happened, but AFAIK I didn't do anything out of the ordinary; just read the tape in MM and got rid of a clip and wrote back to tape - all in the native DV-AVI.

Bit wary of moviemaker. I once tried to export an edited 16:9 DV-AVI file back to tape and the transferred video was 4:3 when the read the tape back. Not sure what had happened, but AFAIK I didn't do anything out of the ordinary; just read the tape in MM and got rid of a clip and wrote back to tape - all in the native DV-AVI.

Did you make sure to select "16:9" aspect ratio in the Options menu? You have to do that to get your case working. If you did, it's most probably a bug on the "back to DV tape" feature.

But that wasn't what I suggested a_shar. I simply suggested to use MovieMaker to save into a DV-AVI file of 20 minutes or less to make it fit on a DVD, effectively splitting the DV-AVI losslessly using a piece of software that he probably has already.

A stand-alone dvd recorder with hard drive and dv input will do the job simply and easily. My Panasonic will set a chapter point for me each time I stopped the camcorder. Simplifies editing.

I just archived about 180 miniDV tapes to two sets of 1tb external harddrives, for a total of 4 drives. I could have used just two 1tb drives, but I wanted to "mirror" the data, so hence I have 4. They are dirt cheap, these 1tb external drives at around $230 each, and I love them over optical dvd because you can get to your movies fast, and not have to be a dvd disk jockey....a 1tb drive can hold around 85 or so 1 hour tapes, and all those "tapes" on just one drive, and so accessability is very fast and very convenient. And this solution means no special software...just your camcorder, a firewire cable, MicroSoft Movie Maker which comes with Windows XP, and the external drives, and that is it. I "mirror" each drive because I have never trusted harddrives in the long run...it is never a matter of IF they will crash, but WHEN....sure you will here of some that have perfectly working drives a zillion years old but this is the exception and not the rule....I love optical but do you know how many hours of burning I would need to do to archive my 180+ miniDV tapes? And the storage of that many disks is no small matter, and over time some of these dvd disk develop pits that render them unreadable....external harddrives (mirrored) for me all the way ;-)

I struggled with how to archive my home videos several years ago. I originally converted all my old VHS tapes, 8mm tapes, Digital8, and mini-DV tapes to DV-AVI files and backed them up to DVD-R disks. Unfortunately, that takes a huge amount of time, and I had several disks become unreadable after sitting a few years. So you will want multiple copies of your DVD disks if you decide to go that route.

After discovering many disk failures, I started saving my DV-AVI files to hard drives, but the storage requirements are overwhelming.

I got hung up on "saving the original quality", when in fact most of the videos weren't that great of quality to start with. Converting to DV certainly didn't make them look better, the file sizes just got bigger. I also realized it was very unlikely I would ever go back and edit those videos, so I really didn't need to worry about losses when editing.

In the end, I chose to encode my videos as high bitrate 9000kbps MPEG2 files. It looks virtually identical to the original, the format is widely supported by numerous applications, and I can create a video DVD directly from the files if I want to. On the very remote chance I want to use a clip from an old video, I can still convert the MPEG2 back to DV or some other format.

The MPEG2 format is better quality than most of the source files were anyway, and it takes MUCH less space. I have about 96 videos dating back to 1963, and they only use about 34Gig on my hard drive. I back up my main hard drive to two external hard drives, and keep one in a safe deposit box in case we have a theft or house fire. I also back up the MPEG2 videos to DVD's once a year or so, just in case the files are corrupted without my knowledge and migrate into the hard drive backups.

Finally, editing out the useless clips in your videos can save a lot of space. Even if you don't want to go the full editing route, you can still use a program like VirtualDub to remove those clips of the sky, floor, wall, etc. between the stuff you really want to keep.

Anthony

I am new to this forum, have tried searching and found this thread as closest to my issue. If there is a better one, please forgive the slightly-off-point digression.

I, like the others above, am trying to archive video originally captured on Digital8 tapes. Have been using Sonic MyDVD, which came bundled with my Dell. When watching my tapes played back through the camcorder (Sony Handycam), I am able to switch on and off the display of the data stored during recording (light level, audio level, date, time, etc.). Once the video is transferred to the computer, I cannot find any functions on the Sonic software, Windows MovieMaker or ULead that will access that information.

Is that information locked in the tape and inaccessible, or does it take using some other software or gimmick that I'm not aware of to get at it? While I have the basic timeframe for each of these video tapes, it would be hugely gratifying to my Type A personality to know the EXACT date and time something was happening (disregarding the fact that there are occasions where I forgot to spring forward or fall back on the camcorder clock...)

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

http://www.dvmp.co.uk/dv-media-player.htm

Thanks! Looks like something I can handle.

Would you happen to have any experience with this software? I wondered how the Pro version handled burn-in of the metadata (presumably to the MPEG2 format). Would be awesome if it put it as a subtitle or view angle that could be switched on and off with the DVD player features in real-time.