Home Video software suggestion?

[nickless]

My folks have many 8MM and DV tapes of family events from over the years. They would like to make DVDs with these. We have the dazzle stand or whatever it is to hookup the camcorder to the pc via firewire or AV cords.

Is there a freeware program that works well and is most importantly USER FRIENDLY? My dad isn't what you'd even consider joking about being a computer whiz. You'd swear he just crawled out from under a rock.

If there isn't a good freeware program, does anyone have any recommendations of a good/easy program that you could pick up at say... best buy? Thanks guys (and gals)!

[UncasMS]

it could be done using complete freeware but please do not expect this to be an easy way!

you /your dad will have to decide: either invest some money in an all-in-one solution from ulead or pinnacle or invest a considerable amount of time in learnig many different tools to capture the material to harddrive, convert video and audio separetely and finally author the streams to dvd compliant vobs

[Chewy]

Or just get a standalone recorder for the bulk of the work.
And still do a little with the dazzle.

[Groundhog]

The Dazzle I bought came with Pinnacle Studio 9. I used it to transfer our wedding tape over to DVD. PS9 is a little hard to get use to, but it was good enough for what I wanted to do.

[UncasMS]

studio 9 is definitely not an easy application but it is quite powerful and stil way easier than adobe premiere

[drfsupercenter]

Studio 9 is great... only problem is the AVIs cannot be burned with Nero, you have to burn with Pinnacle, then rip and make menus then reburn.

I reccomend AM Capture... came bundled with Pinnacle on my Dazzle DVC90 card, it's free and works great. The AVIs CAN be burned with Nero or other burning programs.