Convert 8mm tapes into mpgs or avis?

[Mattlock2]

What's the best way to convert my camcorder 8mm tapes into a avi, mpg, or whatever? I'd like to create some CDs for the family.

thanks,

Mattlock

 

[Tallgeese]

Play them on a Digital8 camcorder with FireWire. Capture them using a FireWire card to source files on your HD (need PLENTY of space!). Edit the source and/or recompress to fit on CD.

Piece of cake!!!

 

[klah]

You will need a video capture card such as the ATI All-in-wonder. You simply plug the coax-video out from the camcorder to the videocard and use the bundled software to record and do basic editing. After it is captured you can either create a vcd(Nero makes this easy) which will allow the cd to be played in most DVD players, or if they want to view the video on their computers you can use DIVX to compress the file, which has much better compression and will allow you to keep the video at a higher resolution. I have not used a video-capture card in the past so I cannot recommend a specific card. There is lots of good information on video-capture cards and VCD here: www.vcdhelp.com including step-by-step instructions to do exactly what you wish to do. If you wish to compress the video with divx you will need the free version of Divx Pro here: www.divx.com/divx

 

[Mattlock2]

Thanks Tall and klah... Have you ever heard of the Dazzle capture card/hardware? I wonder if it is any good?

Mattlock

 

[klah]

If you go here: www.vcdhelp.com/capturecards.php and type in dazzle it will bring up the list of dazzle cards. You can also click on "Top User Rated" and it will sort the list based on ratings.

 

[MyChemEGirl]

I owned both the Dazzle DVC I parallel port and the DVC II pci. I had many problems with the DVC I such as it not detecting. VCD quality of DVC okay. DVC II has some IRQ conflicts but once you figure that out, the DVD quality capture is superb with regular RCA inputs. S Video input looks a little better. You have to install a PCI card and connect it to the external capture device for the DVC II though. Dazzle just made a new DVD capture device that uses only USB. I am going to get that later. Hope it works just as great as the DVC II.