Converting Mini DV Tape to DVD

Sonic4

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I have a number of old Mini DV Tapes. I wish to extract portions of the recorded footage off some of the discs, and place them onto a DVD, which would then be played direct on a PC (iMac), and/or a TV / DVD Player. I note there are services (albeit quite expensive) that will produce "an editable computer file on a DVD" from DV Tape Footage. Presumably if I chose that route I could do a mini edit of parts and add Titles, Background music. If I chose to attempt the transfer myself (an amateur with no editing experience) would software such as DVD Burning Express enable me to do either process?
 
To get them on a PC you need a working DV camcorder and a PC with a firewire port. Once on a PC any video editing package will let you do the editing. Once you have an edited file in mpeg2 720 x 576 then DVD authoring software will let you create a DVD. DVDflick for instance. Windows 7 comes with free basic editing software.
 
. Presumably if I chose that route I could do a mini edit of parts and add Titles, Background music.

Whilst Graham's post details exactly what is required, it might be worth emphasising that if you want your edited footage to play on a standalone DVD player -- as opposed to simply via a computer DVD player, then the 'authoring' of your edited footage that Graham describes is essential.
Standalone DVD players will only play correctly authored DVDs.

If you edit your footage and either keep it in it's original DV format, or convert it any other video format, you will only be able to play it via a computer disc player.
 
This has been mentioned numerous times on the forum .........................converting mini-DV to DVD .The best way if you need to edit , add transitions/effects/background music is to use a Firewire card/port connected to your camcorder .Software on you PC/laptop will capture the signals .This is done in real time and uses up quite a bit of hard drive space in the process ...............12/13GB per hour .Once finished ,you can import the DV file into your editing program ,I've always used Pinnacle in the past , this has always made a good job of capturing ..........no dropped frames and will quickly and easily allow you to edit ,add effects etc ,then put the finished file directly to DVD. Lots of editing programs to use , I do like Vegas by Sony ,but theres Magix ,Serif Movie plus and a host of others .
That said , by far the easiest way to transfer your tape footage to DVD is to use a DVD/HDD recorder . Simply connect your camcorder to the device and record the signals to the HDD ,then you can do basic editing if you want then write back from HDD to DVD , finalise the disk and it will play on any player . My Liteon recorder has a Firewire port to make it easier to connect . With the tape now on DVD , you have several options , you could rip the disk using software on your PC/laptop to a file that can be imported into your editing package ,thus allowing you to edit , add effects etc ...............then write back to DVD as the finished work.
Another way , if you just need clips of your footage is to use certain software , I have used Womble in the past . This allows you to capture parts of the DVD in real time , as it will read .vob files .It will save the files as mpegs or avi's .Then you can import these clips into your editing program .
Any connection between camcorder and pc/laptop will be a time consuming operation ,the editing , then encoding the file to a DVD , so be prepared to spend quite a bit of time at it . Good luck .
 

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