That sounds like a wonderful experience Nation.
You are good converting your videos over. I'm way behind, keep starting my UK one but can't get round to finishing it. Mind you I did convert all our old videos (wedding, babies etc) over to DVD as the videos do start to deteriorate. THAT was a mammoth task and a bit scary at times (why did I like permed hair so much ) but at least the kids were cute!

What system do you use Augusta ? I use " Click to DVD". It's still a slow process though. About three hours to copy one hour of video. At least you can do something else while the computer takes care of the process.

Last year I borrowed a DVD Burner with a hard drive, hooked up the video machine, recorded each video onto the hard drive then onto disk. Long winded but it did the trick, as we had a lot on the big cassettes as well as the small camera ones (prob about 20 tapes). Now we have a digital video camera & the process is a whole lot easier! I use 'Cyberlink' to download from the camera onto the computer and then edit it, add music and words etc. I love what can be done these days, it's so easy and I'm far from being a computer whiz (my kids think I'm a dinosaur in fact).

I wanted to add comments and background music to the DVD's, but the programme to do this costs NZ$875. Too much for this pocket !
So I download the same small cassettes on to VHS tapes, and add music and talkover to that, if I think it's worth it !
I've learnt to talk more as I'm capturing video. Though it sometimes gets people around giving me strange looks !!

I know what you mean but who cares, not like you'll ever see them again! Mind you I always hate how I sound on video so I try to keep quiet.
Our software came with our camera, thank goodness. It's been great to use on editing old footage as well - I put together hour movies of our children's first year etc. The grandparents all loved getting a copy and it's nice for us to have a reminder of how cute they were before they became moody teenagers

quote:

Originally posted by nation:
I wanted to add comments and background music to the DVD's, but the programme to do this costs NZ$875. Too much for this pocket !
So I download the same small cassettes on to VHS tapes, and add music and talkover to that, if I think it's worth it !
I've learnt to talk more as I'm capturing video. Though it sometimes gets people around giving me strange looks !!

Nation,

If you are a MS Windows user, you have their software , "Movie Maker." I've been using it for a few years, and am quite happy with it. As with any software , there is a "learning curve" if one intends to utilize all the features. If you're going to do it, you may as well do it right, if you have the time; it can be very time consuming.

Personally, I do not narrate while shooting: It limits options if one intends to edit and add features later on. Of course, recording "nat" sound (local background sound) is a good idea.

Regards,

Bob

I had a look at `windows movie maker`, added voice over and music, and found it very quick. But , ending up with a picture about 3 inches square put me off. Perhaps I was doing something wrong. Found it no good when showing on the telly. Whereas, with `click to DVD` I got a full screen , crystal clear result.

Just put a few funny clips of our tour on Windows movie maker. Very convenient for sending to friends by E-mail.

quote:

Originally posted by nation:
I had a look at `windows movie maker`, added voice over and music, and found it very quick. But , ending up with a picture about 3 inches square put me off. Perhaps I was doing something wrong. Found it no good when showing on the telly. Whereas, with `click to DVD` I got a full screen , crystal clear result.

Nation,

That's odd. If you had gone through the entire process (create and edit the clips and then organize the "story board," and then save the project as a movie on to a DVD) the final product should occupy the TV's full screen.

I notice that you indicated that it "went very quick" and that would indicate, to me, that all you had done was download from your tape onto the computer, creating a "collection." If that is the case, you have just begun to create a project that will eventually be saved as a movie. That would explain why you are only seeing a small image; you are probably still in the "create project mode. In that mode the images are relatively small while the remainder of the display is serving other functions.

As I mentioned previously, there is definitely a learning process, and it will take time. When I created my movie of Croatia and Slovenia, I worked on it for about 3 months,on and off, of course. Much of the time is because of the constant "tweaking to enhance the final product."

Bob

Cheers rmonturi. I've saved it . so I'll have another gander !

It looks like I can only save short video clips to CD, not DVD. Maybe the reason is I'm only using a Sony `Vaio` laptop.

quote:

It looks like I can only save short video clips to CD, not DVD

I have this problem also. It 'could' be something to do with the 'writer' not being set up properly.

My computer technician son is uninterested in investigating the problem but he did mention the words 'I can't have set that up properly'