DVD Transfer & Edit

[AR]

I have several Hi8 tapes from a analog camcorder taken of the kids over the
years. Instead of buying an analog - digital transfer card for this one-time
use, I'm thinking of using a video to DVD transfer service.

Will I then be able to import the new DVDs into Moviemaker 2 to edit and
burn onto a new DVD?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Bob]

You can't import DVDs directly into Movie Maker. Nor can Movie Maker burn a
new DVD.

You can accomplish your goal, but you will need to go through a couple
conversion steps using other software to do it. And keep in mind, each time
you convert (re-encode/re-compress) a video file, you lose some quality.

1. Convert the DVD to DV-AVI video file. This can be accomplished using
DVD2AVI (free) and TMPGEnc (free trial version).
2. Import DV-AVI into Movie Maker and edit.
3. Save as DV-AVI in Movie Maker
4. (optional) Convert DV-AVI to MPEG-2 using TMPGEnc
5. Import DV-AVI (or MPEG-2) into DVD Authoring software & burn new DVD.

I wouldn't be surprised if you'd be able to buy an analog-to-digital capture
card for less money than you'd pay for the transfer service. In either
case, good luck with your project.

-Bob

 

[PapaJohn \(MVP\)]

Maybe you could just borrow a digital8 camcorder from someone, play the
tapes in it and use your firewire connection to capture them.

PapaJohn