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Is there ANYone out there to help me NOT get ripped off? I will describe my problem in the terms I know.....I usually use a Hi-8 cam-corder with a Hi-8 tape in it, then get the tape transfered professiionally to a DVD format so I can watch it on any DVD player. This has worked well, is simple, and did not cost too much (25 bucks to convert mini tape to dvd). On my last rail travel trip, I forgot the damn camcorder, but the girlfriend had a digital camera, that had moving picture making capability, so I went to a camera store, bought the little chip, about the size of a postage stamp, a little bigger, put it in the camera, and made my 6 or 7 minute movie. I took the "chip" to various camera stores here in town, and told em I needed this short movie on dvd. They all said couldnt do it. So I got a computer buddy to put it onto a cd-r compact disk, and viwed it on a computer. Fine...no problem. Now I'd like it onto a DVD format, so it can be seen on any regular dvd player. I took the cd-r disk to the professional place that did my hi-8 tape to dvd's, and he wants 50 bucks to do this 7 minute movie! Again, this is from cd-r to dvd. Am I being ripped off? How much work is this? Does it require expen$ive equipment? Any help would be great! Next time I aint forgetting the regular camcorder!!
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Search the "authoring and editing" forum for tips. We will need to know what format the files are on the CD. If they are .avi you will need to have a program to convert and encode them to a DvD format. If they are .mpeg4 files I belive you can copy the files to your hard drive and just rename them with a .vob extention and you should then be able to burn them to a DvD. Put the CD in your computer and use the "explore" feature to see what the file type is. Start>my computer>right click the cd drive>explore. Let us know what you find and then we will go from there.
If you do this alot, you may want to get the hardware to do the transfer from tape to DvD yourself. At $25 per conversion you may be able to justify the $200 (approx) it would take to get the unit that lets you transfer from tape to your hard drive. You can then encode it yourself and burn the disc. I know it sounds like a big task but with some research at the forums here and some practice you can learn to do it.
oh, and for the "chip" in the camera, you can call it a memory stick, memory card, flash memory, heck you can tell your friends you bought "film" for the camera and were amazed at how small they are packaging it now days.
Dont worry about knowing all the terms, we can help with that, and as time goes on you will learn more and more of them. Keep us posted and I know you will find the help you need here. Welcome to the forums and enjoy the learning. -
What is the make/model of the camera. Some cameras such as Olympus create mov clips, others create avi or mpeg clips. Once we know what format the clip is in. We can give you better software advice.
You should be able to attach the camera to the computer and copy the movie clip over to the computer. The camera should have come with a USB cable.
For starters. You may want to try this software on the movie clip and see if it reads ok. It will then create a DVD from it. There will be a waternmark on the trial software.
Last edited by nwg; 29 Mar 2006, 01:43 AM.Comment
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is 50 bucks too much to pay a pro?
If I dont have the software, and dont anticipate having to do more conversions, am I getting good value at paying 50 dollars for this? (cd-r, avi format, to dvd)
Just how hard is it for the pro to do? Very time consuming?Comment
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I cant say if it is a good value or not, I have never looked into the pricing of this type of video transfer. I will say I would have a bit of sticker shock if quoted that price, whether it is the going rate or not.
The process is not difficult but does require some knowledge, hardware, software and time. The actuall amount of time to encode varies based on the bit rate of the movie, but I cant imagine a 7 minute movie taking a large amount of time. Maybe there is a piece of this task that I dont know, but it would seem to me that it would take less time for the transfer now that the data is on a CD. My thought being: If a movie on tape is 30 min the tape has to play for 30 min just to get the data on a computers hard drive. If the movie is on a CD that can be read by the computer at up to 52 times faster. I would shop around and see if his rate is the norm. If it is and you have no desire to do it yourself then the rate is what it is, and you are stuck with it.Comment
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You can do it yourself for free. The Hi-8 you couldn't since it requires capture hardware so at twice the price I would say it is very bad value. Then again you might be the kind of person who doesn't have the aptitude for learning new software quickly, etc. in which case it could be cheaper to pay the $50.Comment
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