Recording to DVD (Excuse my ignorance)

[tomeleven]

Please excuse my ignorance, but I am new to this DVD stuff and I am not planning to do the usual music and movie copy thing.

I am "filming" some short projects in VHSc, and thought it migt be a good idea to convert the raw tape footage to DVD before editing, so as to minimize the degradation of picture quality through the generations of the editing process, and ALSO be able to take advantage digital editing and special effects software that is available to digital imagery.

once this is done, I plan to assemble the results either on another dvd or transfer the resultiant video to a "Master VHS" tape.----Other options might include cuting and pasting the DVD data to the master tape (using the DVD as a source) or simply plugging the camera into a DVD recording device and recording the "raw " footage directly to DVD before editing, Skipping the first tape conversion entirely--and not have to buy an expensive DVD camera.

Will any of the above proposals work for me? Does anyone have any better suggestions?

THANKS

TOM

[Tunesman22]

First of all, I wouldn't transfer your finished video onto a vhs tape, that is if you want to maintain good quality to your video, unless you're planning on making copies of your video for relatives and friends. DVD would be the only way to go, for me that is, since I have all the equipment neccessary to edit video to DVD. This as I mentioned depends on what you're wanting to do with your finished video, and if you are planning on distributing your product to others.
I''m not sure how you plan on downloading your video from your VHSc camera to your computer for editing, but I assume that you've secured some way to do that. I own two dv camcorders that already have the capability of downloading to pc by means of a firewire connection, which is pretty much the norm for digital camcorders nowadays. My suggestion, (although a bit expensive one,) would be to purchase a dv camcorder, that way you can easily download to your pc and edit your video, then burn your finished video onto dvd, or you can record your video back onto your dv camera so that you can load it onto a dvd recorder deck, (if you own one,) so that you can further edit it and then burn the finished dvd.
Once you have a finished DVD copy, you can make as many copies from it that you want, to VHS tape or whatever you want.
Hope this helps.

Tunesman22.