adminThere are many Firewire-to-USB adapters in the market, claiming to do the job. They aren’t a straightfoward solution to connecting Firewire-USB connection problem. Simply dust any exposed tape and manually twirl the spokes to loosen them up before trying to play a tape. If you have old reels of film in the attic packed in iconic yellow Kodak boxes, they’re probably Regular 8 or Super 8 film. In 2006 Peter Hilton unearthed a collection of homemade VHS tapes in his dad’s basement. There were hours of concert footage from 2000 to 2003, when Peter’s high school band—Down in Flames—briefly gained a following and toured the country.
This process will create one continuous digital video to be saved on your computer. You need to purchase a video converter device if you don’t own one. If your camcorder and capturing device support an S-Video connection, use it instead of AV because of better picture quality. If you don’t already have an installed Firewire card inside your computer, you can get one installed on your computer motherboard. Also, depending on the firewire card, you need to check for required drivers and install them so the card can work properly.
Also, since the MiniDV tape is analog, the digital feature of copy and paste is not possible. But what if you have some good memories in your MiniDV tapes but have no vintage original camcorder to do the playing to effect the transfer? So, let’s discuss how to convert Mini DV Tapes to digital files without camcorder. For the sake of your videotapes and other media, it’s highly recommended to use professional digitizing services.
However, your computer must also have a Firewire port. The data of MiniDV is a videotape format which was the most popular format for home video cameras at a time. MiniDV Record time is about 60 minutes or 90 minutes (extended/long play). To view the recorded data, you have to play it with the Camcorder itself and view it through the integrated LCD. You can connect the Camcorder to a TV while playing it back to view it on a larger screen. Overall in a short time, you will get your video tapes converted to digital with better video quality than you expected. In addition, you know that tapes are in safe hands and will be digitized and enhanced.
How to Convert Film and VHS to Digital
Eventually, the contents of your old tapes will be gone forever, because the video stored on VHS degrades by as much as 20% every years. Most external video capture devices come with capturing and editing software, such as the example shown below. Depending on the software, it may allow you to remove sections and add titles, chapters, and background music. If the PC has both USB 2.0 and 3.0 connections, note the optimal version of USB for the device. If the video capture device has USB 3.0, it will support a faster video upload speed when connected to a PC’s USB 3.0 port. If not, purchase a card reader with the correct slots that can connect to the PC’s USB port.
How to Transfer MiniDV to Computer
There is a two-hour limit on DVD transfer and no time limit on USB transfers. You don’t have to spend a lot of money on pro-level video editing software just to tweak your videos. You won’t need a lot of hard drive space—your videos will consume about a gigabyte per hour of footage. Unless you have a truly monstrous library, you can probably fit your entire family video library on a 32GB USB flash drive, or archive it in a cloud storage service like Dropbox. Roxio has been in the business of video editing and conversion for many years, and the Easy VHS to DVD 3 Plus is a polished product that reflects that expertise.
You can do it yourself, or you can get the services of conversion centers that can do it for you. You must be patient if you want to do the work yourself. This is so because the transfer of MiniDV data to computer plays in real-time. The digital feature of simple copy and paste at high speed is not available.
With the completion of footage, stop the camcorder and the DVD recorder. Press play on the camcorder, and then press record on the DVD recorder. Open video capturing software and find the camcorder source.
Then install some webcam software, like Logitech Capture, and connect the camcorder to your computer via USB or HDMI cable. Go through any software prompts that remind you to connect the video and audio from your camcorder or video playback device. Open the video capture or video editing software you want to use. You can easily send 8mm video to USB digital video converters through these ports. If your computer comes with a Firewire port then you would not have to go through the hassle of buying a video capture card. You may also record from a VHS player or any playback device that you can connect to an 8mm tape player.
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“I just knew that if I didn’t do something with those tapes in a few years, I’d lose them,” Hilton says. “There might not be the technology to support them.” He didn’t try to convert the VHS tapes to a digital format then, but the project earned a spot on his to-do list. Only some camcorder models can record videos on a Memory Stick.