Old Home Videos

dhjjessel · 13 Apr 2008 at 13:01

Hye guys

found this old sony handycam from about 1985 (seriously) with lots of old hme video cassettes and i was wanting to convert them to dvd. My macbook pro has an optical input - can i get a converter to go from the red, white and yellow ended wires into an optical input feed? then somehow convert them into avi via the optical input?

dhjjessel · 13 Apr 2008 at 13:05

yeah but i have a dvd recorder on my macbook - can i use the dvi/vga plug as an input?

dhjjessel · 13 Apr 2008 at 16:06

yeh this camcorder isnt vhs its hi-8 old school.

dhjjessel · 14 Apr 2008 at 11:59

DolbyDigitalTHX said:
A breakout box is still viable, depends whether you want straight transfers or want to do editing/titling as previously mentioned...

whats a breakout box? dont really care about editing/titling etc.

dhjjessel · 14 Apr 2008 at 21:26

thanks ** a legend

DolbyDigitalTHX said:
A 'breakout' box is a generic term for a hardware panel or case with various inputs/outputs which connect to a PC via firewire/USB.

In your case, an example of the sort of thing you might use is here.

However, since you don't want to do editing/titling, it would be extra hassle to capture all the footage just so you can then burn to DVD. You'd be better off, as suggested earlier, using a standalone DVD recorder.

You don't need the DVD/VHS combo ones - just connect your camera to the recorder with an S-Video lead and standard RCA phono leads for the audio...

dhjjessel · 14 Apr 2008 at 21:27

by the way is that a particularly good one or is it a cheap one/ top end one?

dhjjessel · 14 Apr 2008 at 22:49

yes but doing it via my mac might be easier since the hi8 videos will probably fit 2 or 3 on 1 disc so i can put them all together on my mac and write to disc!

dhjjessel · 15 Apr 2008 at 10:32

ok maybe the dvd recorder is a better option.
Although i thought Hi8 was digital?
anyhoo i will take heed