How to Transfer Home Movies to Cd or Whatever Is the Most Current Storage Thing

I bought the "Dazzle" Video Creator by Pinnacle. It's a device that transfers your old videos into a digital format. Then you use their software (included) to edit the videos and turn them into DVD's. Yes, it takes time but I had 50 hours of video and no one wanted to watch all that. I edit like crazy and just keep the most interesting stuff so the DVD's are fun to watch. Because it uses alot of memory, I store everything on an external hard drive so it doesn't slow down my computer. My tech skillls are pretty basic but I've learned to add titles and special effects. Oh, and in order to preserve all the original material, I copied the digitized raw footage to a second external hard drive (used 2/3 of 1 TB) and stashed it in my safe deposit box at the bank.

There is a machine you can buy to transfer VHS to DVD. And it's not all that expensive: Here's O. site:

http://www.amazon.com/Sony-RDR-VX530-Recorder-Combo-Playe...

we have a VHS/DVD player/burner. you can play the VCR tape and record it onto DVD at the same time you're watching it. they're pretty cheap if you want to do it yourself. Otherwise, I'd just give everything to someone that can do it for you :)

Costco, does it.

Editing takes time.
LOTS of time.

Since you have the miniDV tapes (that's what the little VHS kind of tapes are called), the easiest thing would be to buy the cable that connects from your video camera to your computer (mine uses an IEEE 1394 cable) and copy them to a DVD using your computer's DVD drive. No fancy software needed, and this way you've got the footage on your computer as well as on a DVD. This cable can also be connected to a DVD burner if you have something like a DVD/VCR burner combo. Be sure that's the kind of cable you need for your computer because not all of the newer computers have the IEEE 1394 port since everything is going to HDMI inputs. Be sure the camcorder uses the IEEE 1394 cable as well. If it's a newer camcorder, it might take the HDMI cable. If you aren't sure about the cables, you can take the camcorder to Best Buy or another electronics shop and they can tell you pretty quickly if that's the kind you need.

If that seems to be too complicated. you can send the tapes off to have them copied, but that's going to cost a good bit. As for editing, it's at your discretion. I'm not big on editing because I tend to only film the footage I want and editing is time consuming. You should be able to do basic editing through Windows if you have a PC. Good luck!

A lot of photography stores are now offering to transfer home movies to dvd. I'd call around and found out and prices.