VHS Transfer to DVD or Hard Drive?

June 13, 2011 by




Customers often ask us: Should I transfer my video tapes – VHS, VHS-C, Hi8, miniDV – to DVD or to a a Hard Drive?

Here’s the quick answer:
If you’re just looking for the convenience of watching your home movies: choose DVD. If you have any intentions to edit your home videos, go Hard Drive.

The more detailed answer:
If you plan to do any video editing, transferring to a hard drive has two benefits over transferring to a DVD:

Benefit 1: Digital video files can be imported into your Video Editing Software directly.
We can transfer your old home videos to MOV files if you use Apple, or to AVI files if you use Windows.
You can then directly import the files into your video editing software and start editing. Apple has iMovie and Windows has Windows Movie Maker. Either of this software is user-friendly and a good choice for first-time editors, even long-time editors like me.

Bear in mind, video files are large, it may take up to 30 minutes to transfer a 2 hour video file from the portable hard drive to your computer. That though, is time well spent – editing files that reside on your computer is much faster than editing files that reside on an external hard drive.

Benefit 2: Video files on hard drive are higher resolution than on DVD.
Once video files are burned on a playable DVD, they have been compressed.
That’s why you can fit 2 hours of home video on a DVD that’s only 4.7 Gig.

Compare this to a hard drive transfer: 1 hour of video takes up 16 Gig, so 2 hours take up 32 gig. This is because when you transfer to a portable hard drive, the video file is not compressed.
If you plan to edit your video files, you want to start with the highest resolution source file you can get.

We transfer any media to hard drive – not just VHS tapes. Many customers are requesting their film reels: 8mm film, Super 8, 16mm film to be transferred to hard drive as well.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact us, our in-house video transfer lab is located in Newton, MA, part of Greater Boston.

Filed Under: Video Editing

How to convert Videos for Your iPhone

March 19, 2010 by

Enjoy watching videos on your iPod, iTouch or iPhone? iTunes store is a great place to purchase videos, but what about getting your own home movies on your iPhone?

If your home movies are already in digital format, you’ve got a head start. Many of us though still have our precious memories stored in VHS tapes, Hi8 tapes, miniDV, or heaven forbid, in 8mm or 16mm film reels. If so, your first step is to digitize them into digital video. Video transfer service providers now offer video tape transfer to hard drive, not just DVDs. Go for the hard drive option. Once your videos are on the hard drive, you can convert them to iPod-friendly format. By that, I mean MP4 format. Then simply upload your MP4 videos into iTunes.

Transferring your video tapes to digital video is easy, just bring it to a video transfer service provider. The trickier part is converting your digital video into MP4 format.

There are a number of sites and software that allow you to convert just about any digital video format to MP4 format required by Apple devices.

The one we recommend to our clients is the free Videora ipod converter. The steps may seem daunting to you if you consider yourself techno-phobic, but you only have to figure it out once. The 2nd, 3rd time will be a breeze.

To help take the fear away, we’ve created a video tutorial on how to convert your videos into iPod, iTouch or iPhone MP4 format. Click the link below and watch the easy step-by-step process:

http://simplevideoediting.com/howto/share_ipod

You’ve got your kids pictures on your iPhone, why not their videos as well. Good luck!

Filed Under: Video Editing Tagged With: , , ,

Video Editing Starts Before Shooting the Video

September 4, 2009 by

Taking a few minutes to prepare before shooting the video can save you a lot of time video editing later.

When you decide to use home-grown talents instead of professional actors to shoot for a video production, the cost can easily explode way beyond budge if preparations are not done properly. Below are some tips that you can tell your talent to make the preparation effort most effective.
Rehearse many times beforehand. Scripts should be prepared, edited and well rehearsed before the take. The more preparation he makes, the more relaxed he will be during the shoot, and the better the production will turn out.

What not to wear… Wear the clothes that you feel comfortable in, but avoid distracting patterns or colors. The camera does not like black or white, or small patterns such as tweed and herringbone. Solid colors work best. Do not wear scarves or jewelries that would rub on or hit the microphone. Chunky jewelries that may hit the furniture and send off extraneous sounds should be avoided as well. The lapel-style microphones work best with collared shirts, lapel jackets and cardigan sweaters.

Location, lighting, and other set-up issues. Shoot in a big room to maximize the depth of view. Cover the window with shades to avoid sunlight. If you want to showcase the skyline view of your office, the crew can gel the windows properly for shooting, which will take some extra time. Plan plenty of time for the crew to set it up before shooting, at least an hour.

The script should sound, rather than look, good. Be aware that some nicely written sentences can sound awkward when read. Make sure the script sounds smooth and natural when read aloud. Do not Corporate brochures should not be read directly before the camera without being edited.
Prepare the talent mentally for the shooting. Tell your talent to prepare as much as possible beforehand – rehearse the script, dress properly and plan about 10 min makeup times for the makeup artist. Also tell him or her that it is going to be a professional shooting with a crew to avoid any jitters caused by unexpected elaborated shooting setup. On the day of shooting, he/she should just relax. Non-live shooting can always be edited after the production, so no need to worry about making mistakes.

Once again, relax.

Filed Under: Video Editing Tagged With: , ,

VHS to DVD or to Hard Drive?

May 23, 2009 by

When to transfer your VHS to DVD and when to transfer your VHS to hard drive?

Many customers ask us the above question. Here’s the simple answer: If you plan to edit your video (add music, titles, trim out the slow parts, for example), transfer your VHS to hard drive. If you don’t plan to do any editing, you just want to convenience of popping your DVD into a DVD player and watch it unedited, then transfer your VHS to DVD.

That answer helps most customers decide right away.

A few customers, after hearing that, get interested and ask another question, “Is it hard to edit videos?” It used to be. It used to be very hard. Only professionals do it. Because it takes special training, and because the video editing software is north of $1,000.

Not anymore. The software is free whether you are on the Mac (iMovie) or on the PC (Windows Movie Maker). We even offer free video tutorials for Windows Movie Maker.

I hope that didn’t make it a harder choice for you. Call us anytime (617) 901-4564 to discuss your situation and we’ll help you weigh the pros and cons of transferring VHS to DVD or Hard Drive.

Filed Under: Video Editing Tagged With: , , , ,

Video Editing your transferred home movies

February 20, 2009 by

After you transfer your films, VHS tapes, mini-DV tapes or old-generation media into a DVD, you may decide you want to edit them. You may want to trim out the slow parts, or add music to those silent films you transferred from 8mm or 16mm films to DVD. To edit your videos, you can’t just copy files from the DVD to your video editor because the DVD you have is not a data DVD but a movie DVD that’s meant to play on DVD players.

So how to edit your video? First thing you need to do is to extract or “rip” your video from the DVD. There are many software that can do this. A popular DVD ripper that’s free and available for download on the internet is MPEG Streamclip. My video editor friend, Jon Kazanjian at Life’s Highlights tipped me to it.

MPEG Streamclip is a powerful free video converter, player, editor for both Mac and Windows. You can use MPEG Streamclip to open and play most movie formats including MPEG files which is the format your DVD is in, then convert them to QuickTime, AVI, DV and MPEG-4 files. Once your video has been converted to those formats, you can import them into your video editor.

If you have never used a video editing software, the process may be daunting. If you are a Windows user, I recommend the free Windows Movie Maker that comes with your PC. I’ve created some video tutorials to help you get started. Check them out at http://simplevideoediting.com/howto/

Happy Editing!

Filed Under: Video Editing Tagged With: , , ,
Next Page »