I have loads of mini-DV tapes stored with priceless video of our kids, events, etc. I'd like to convert them to DVD, both for safekeeping and for ease of use.
Given that, does anyone have any advice on services to do this? Is it reasonably cheap to send them to an outfit that does such a thing? The camera is old enough that doing it myself, in conjunction with lack of SW, sounds daunting.
TIA!
Nothing?
I have never used a professional service for this, I have used both Windows Movie Maker (which comes with XP but I'm not sure about earlier versions of Windows) and Adobe Premiere Pro to capture video from DV tapes. It's pretty straight forward to upload to your computer but you will need a fair amount of available storage. I used a 300G external hard drive to store project files instead of directly on the C drive. I have made several DVDs for people, including some for our local car club of rallyx events. I used Adobe Encore to author the DVD's with custom menus made in Photochop. I would be willing to help you out if you're interested shoot me a PM. 
Paying for this type of work is expensive. I have a mac mini and picked up an elgato video capture dongle and use that to input to the computer which then digitizes the video onto the HD, which I then duplicate onto 2 other hds because I'm paranoid about backing up. Since you have a mini-dv camcorder you may already be ahead of the game - if it outputs by FireWire or USB then just hook it to your computer and go, no converter required. If you have windows the built in media software actually works very well for that purpose. For mac iMovie and iDVD work well.
As pigeon says, if your Mini-DV camcorder has USB or Firewire, you're good to go.
As an aside, DVDs - much like CDs - aren't necessarily the best long-term storage as they do age and can become unreadable. I'd be more tempted to store them on a harddrive and copy them to a new disk every few years rather than keep it on a DVD. There's also the issue of longer-term storage and the ability to play back the DVDs. Think VHS tape - quite hard to find a VCR to play them back these days. It's easier if you keep them on a disk in a format that can be read by video editing software (if in doubt, keep the software with the data) and output in various formats that you'll hopefully be able to watch in 20 years from now.
BoxheadTim wrote: There's also the issue of longer-term storage and the ability to play back the DVDs. Think VHS tape - quite hard to find a VCR to play them back these days. It's easier if you keep them on a disk in a format that can be read by video editing software (if in doubt, keep the software with the data) and output in various formats that you'll hopefully be able to watch in 20 years from now.
I don't think playing back DVDs will ever be a problem (you can always play them back on a computer, as long as you can find a DVD drive - it's still possible to read 5.25" floppies today), but I use MP4(DivX/XviD) or H.264 just because they're smaller and far more convenient.
I used a professional service, the guy had a set up in his basement. He converted old 8mm Kodaks to VHS. That was 15 years ago, I wish I had done DVD. IIRC it was ~$200.
I made about a dozen copies and gave them away to my sister and five brothers, assorted aunts and uncles at a BBQ at my home.
Dan
Has anyone used either an Honestech capture device or the Sony VRD-MC6 standalone DVD burner ?
I have been given 16 Hi8 8mm videotapes and can play them on an older Sony handycam.
I do know that the Roxio converter has terrible reviews on Amazon.com
One reason to DIY is multiple copies and storage of the video on hard drive as well...
Have not gone any further with the old 16mm film yet....
I'd stay away from all things Sony for VC.
I learned this long ago with my old Hi8 that EVERYTHING was proprietary (cables, cards, so-on-and-so-forth, repeat ad nauseam). May have changed, but between that and my Sony Optical Block failure, I'll never spend another cent with them.
For conversion advice, you might want to check afterdawn. They have a metric ton of DIY's, and a very knowledgeable forum base for q&a.
Just buy a video encoder box and do it yourself. Play the vids on whatever you have that plays them, feed the NTSC into the box via RCA cables, record to MPEG on the drive via firewire or USB2, burn it out to DVD.
I bought a Plextor brand box to do this years ago. The cost of the box will be cheaper than paying someone to do one tape.
I got this a few months back to convert my in-laws and our family VHS to digital
Honestech VHS to DVD 5.0 Deluxe http://www.amazon.com/Honestech-VHS-DVD-5-0-Deluxe/dp/B0040FT30O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325294066&sr=8-1
fairly inexpensive and straight forward... quality is as good as the video quality i'm recording from (pretty aweful for some of them as the tapes where recorded on LP and 20+ years old recorded with a crappy recorder)
recording everything to the HDD and when i'm done i'll worry about sending things to DVD... will keep the digital copies also but the in-laws would like to have the DVDs to play...
In reply to donalson:
Have you had any issues of image quality or audio being out of sync ?
Thanks,
Chebbie
I read the same reviews... no issue but I do make it a point to stop the tape every hr or so (find a good cut in the video usually) and start it back up.
image quality is meh... but like I mentioned it's coming from a VCR... and the tapes are home recorded on cheap tapes with a cheap VHS camera (my inlaws aren't ones to buy high end stuff and had a bad habbit of re-re-re-re-recording over the same video tape which does nothing for quality...
I can look though what i've got and see if I can find a decent clip to upload if you'd like...
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