DVDs from Home Movies

There are a lot of ways to make DVDs from home movies to play on your living room television set.  At PuterWorx we are set up to use two ways:  One for analog movies (VHS) and one for digital movies (DVR)

For VHS we use a set up called DVDXpress by ADS Tech©.  This is an adapter that converts VHS images to digital mpeg 2 (or DVD) files.  The adapter is connected by RCA jacks to a VCR.  It is then connected to your computer by a USB port.  I use the software that came with the adapter to record the movie to DVD - it does a good job.

There are several companies that sell similar adapters.  I've priced them from $50-$100.

For digital movies I record from the digital movie camera to Microsoft's Movie Maker 2© which comes standard with Windows XP©.  I connect the camera to the computer using FireWire (IEEE 1394).  This records in a format called AVI.  To record to a DVD to play on TV you have to record in MPEG 2.  I use a program by ArcSoft© named Showbiz DVD2© which converts the file (movie) to MPEG 2 and records it.  This does a nice job.

The best reason I have for recording to DVD is the lifespan and quality of the product.  A tape has a projected lifespan of 10 years.  A DVD should last 500 years!!!!