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Each year many make a New Year's resolution to clear clutter while packing away all the paraphernalia painstakingly pulled out and proudly displayed during the holidays. But before putting 2011 to rest, take a look around the house and locate your video camera. If it's like mine, it is probably tucked in a bag laying around like a faithful hound, awaiting the rare moment I show it some attention. For generations many of us have made home movies and then stored them away too. Unlike holiday decorations, too many of our home movies are not even viewed once a year.
New digital cameras are quickly changing the way we view, share and store our personal moments. A click of a computer mouse allows us to enjoy a pictorial history now, but just a few years ago, that wasn't the case. I still have stacks of pictures, 8mm film, VHS and mini-DV tapes with content that was never viewed. As time continues, our projectors and video players are going the way of the Edsel. Sooner than we think, we will have a library of media and no way to see its content.
In the past, film and tape conversion was cost prohibitive and many feared their precious home movies might be lost or damaged when mailing them to professionals. Another concern was rapidly changing technology; by the time we converted to a new format, we would just have to turn around and do it again. Now, for a small investment of money and time, we can do the job ourselves. I recently converted my in-laws' 8mm film and presented them with a DVD for Christmas. The gift was such a success that I continue to receive phone calls from individuals who hire me to convert their movies too! The process was relatively easy. All I had to do was select the film setting on my camcorder and record the film as I projected it onto a white screen. I was then able to manipulate the digital file in my computer video editing software and burn the DVD.
For VHS tapes, I have utilized two methods. A DVD/VHS recorder will make the conversion easily. When VHS tapes have tracking problems, I prefer to use an old VHS player with a tracking knob on the remote and hook it to an ION Video 2 PC Conversion System or a Roxio Easy VHS to DVD Conversion System (both available at walmart.com for under $50.) This allows me to manually adjust out most of the wavy lines on the video before creating the DVD. HDVSplit is freeware that will capture streaming video from your camcorder directly onto your computer. The file can then be manipulated in a variety of video editing programs like Windows Live Movie Maker (free software on most computers with Windows operating systems) or Sony Vegas.
Most computer scanners are capable of digitizing photographs. Make sure each photo is scanned at 300dpi or greater to ensure that image quality is high enough for reproduction. The scanning process can be a bit lengthy, but I considered it well worth my time when I was able to pull my photos out of those sticky backed album pages and safely store them in acid free archival boxes.
The great thing about deciding to complete photo and video conversion in 2012 is that technology has advanced to a point where the original quality is not compromised by digitizing to DVD. It cannot be further enhanced by waiting for new technologies like BluRay, which was developed for high definition television. Of course, at some time in the future we may decide to change formats of our home archives again, but digitization will make it so much easier. Besides, I don't know how many more years I'll be able to purchase replacement filament light bulbs for my Kodak projector before they're outlawed.
