Archiving old VHS home movies

I have a Canon MV500i camera and I am finally getting round to a project of getting all my old VHS home videos into digital format. I have turned on the AV To DV Out, and I have no problem showing the film on the camcorder, but how do I get iMovie show it? If I have no tape in the camcorder, iMovie does not allow import. If I place a tape in and click import - it imports the tape and doesn't show the av import. What am I doing wrong?

Hi Gwyn.
I have just started transferring my old VHS home movies using a Canon MV830i. I don't know if yours will have exactly the same buttons as mine but I assume they are similar.
I recorded the VHS footage onto the DV tape in the camera. I then imported it separately into iMovie. It takes ages but it was easy to do.
My camcorder was set to VCR. The AV terminal was connected to one of the scarts on the back of the video. We had to buy a scart adapter with an input/output switch to connect the cable to. (The adapter only cost a couple of pounds.) There is a button on my camcorder (under the LCD screen) marked "rec pause". We pressed that and it said "pause" on the LCD screen. We set the video playing and then pressed the play/pause button on the camcorder and it started recording. This all sounds terribly complicated but was actually quite easy.
I recorded an hour at a time (as the DV tapes are an hour) and then transferred that into iMovie. I transferred 7 hours of VHS in total so the whole process took 14 hours!
Unfortunately I hadn't set iMovie to limit the length of clips as they were imported and some of them were very long. It made editing difficult and it ended up using huge amounts of my hard drive. I have now reduced my 7 hours to one hour with some heavy editing and we've produced our first DVD.
I'm now about to start on the next batch. Fortunately there will be less this time. (Child number one had 7 hours of her baby years. Child number 2 has 3 hours. And poor child number 3 seems to have hardly any!)
Rachel

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Is there a program to do that?
While software is required for the actual "capture" of the video data, this problem primarily requires a hardware solution. To start, you need some sort of an analog-to-digital converter. This can be a dedicated device or something as simple as a digital handicam you may already have laying around your house. (You have to check owner's manual to see if such an option is available on your particular model.) Dedicated devices tend to come in two output formats -- compressed DV and MPEG. Connectability is usually via FireWire for DV and USB for MPEG. If you plan to edit the material, the DV format is generally preferable. Capture software will depend on the format of the converted output. iMovie, FCX, and FCP will handle DV. If you don't already have one of these applications, then Vidi (free) is a good alternative. USB devices usually come with their own proprietary capture software and may or may not include compatible MPEG editing software.
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I'm looking for suggestions from people who have been successful with any product that is not too difficult to use that will help me get my old home movies (vhs) to dvd and hopefully be able to do some editing in iMovie.

I have done lots of this.
You need, an Analog to Digital converter, iMovie, and iDVD. (You don't need a DVD player, just a VCR.)
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http://www.grassvalley.com/products/advc300
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I want to transfer lots of vhs home movies to dvd, need advice on how to do that.

i was looking at a roxio vhs to dvd product for mac, but i'm not sure it's compatible with the new imac i just bought. Any advice?

Rather than the Roxio product, I would recommend that you look at the products from El Gato.
I used the EyeTV Hybrid and it worked great. It attaches to the Mac via USB and attached to the VHS deck through composite cables (rca jacks). The EyeTV Hybrid will import your VHS, but it will also turn your Mac into an HD TV if you add a rabbit ears antenna. You can record and edit TV shows.
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El Gato makes the hardware (but not the software) for the Roxio product. They also make their own version of the VHS capture product with their own software. I have no opinion on whether it is any good or not, but I have seen posts by others who had a difficult time with it.
El Gato EyeTV website.
If you go up a few hundred dollars in price, a company called Grass Valley makes some Digital Analog Converters which will also capture VHS. You attach via RCA cables to the VHS deck, and attach to Mac via Firewire, so make sure your Mac has Firewire. People have tried the ADVC 300 and the ADVC 110 with good results.
One more thing, if you have a brand new iMac, it may not come preinstalled with iDVD. You may need to purchase iDVD or Toast from Roxio to be able to make DVDs. You can also buy Compressor from Apple to make DVDs. The Roxio option includes a basic version of Toast.
Finally, here is a movie I made after capturing with the EyeTV Hybrid so you can get a feel for the quality. It is not great, because the quality of a VHS is not even as good a standard definition TV, but it still came out pretty good. I would not expect it to look great on a big screen TV, though.

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Use iMovie 06 instead.
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iMovie 06 is a free download to iLife 08 owners. (THEY WANT YOU TO HAVE IT!)
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/imovieHD6.html
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The program that comes with the ADVC300 has some nice filters that can improve video and audio of the source material. The ADVC300 will take Audio and Video from any source and convert it to FireWire (iMovie will treat it like a camera).
http://www.canopus.com/products/ADVC300/index.php
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Hi all, I'm trying to copy some old VHS home movies via a Director's Cut digitizer box into iMovie '08.
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-Power everything off.
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get for 20$ the Apple mpeg2 plugin
and for free the tool Streamclip for converting mp1/2/4, divx, avi, vob...
(with that combo you can NOT override copyprotection mechanisms! ... )
other tools are:
* DVDxDV, it has a 30d trial period (testdrive sets a watermark)... and cost 25$
* Cinematize >60$
* Mpeg2Works >25$ + Apple plug-in
http://danslagle.com/mac/iMovie/tips_tricks/6010.shtml
http://danslagle.com/mac/iMovie/tips_tricks/6018.shtml
or connect Your Camera to a DVD-player and copy to tape or import trough if Your Camera handles that...
iMovie is a video edit app meant to work with firewire connected miniDV camcorders

Best way to convert home movie VHS tapes so they can be edited in iMovie HD

Please help! I'm sorry this question is going to be long, but I'm a novice at this.
My goal is to get my VHS home movies (I have about 30 of them) into iMovie so I can do two things.
First I want to burn DVD's so I'll have a copy of the VHS tapes before they go bad.
Secondly, I want to be able to extract small clips from all of the tapes and combine them in a new iMovie project.
Here's what I've done so far:
I purchased a Canopus ADVC110 and got someof my VHS tapes converted digitally but the file sizes were HUGE and eating up my hard drive space. I was down to 6 GB of space left on my hard drive and almost crashed my Mac.
I deleted all these huge files and got my Mac back up to having 111 gigs of space left. Whew!
This week I purchased a Pinnacle converter and started all over. I took a VHS tape, and it was compressed into a nice small Mpeg-4 file and went to iTunes.
Then I tried to drag and drop it from itunes to imovie. That didn't work. I then dragged the movie to my desktop and then dragged it to imovie..... looks like this was going to take a long time to get into imovie. I'm thinking this is too many steps.
Now I am importing the file into iMovie by importing directly from itunes. The file size is 1.04 GB and it is 1 hour and 54 minutes long. It is taking a loooong time to import this movie....like 100 minutes.
I am afraid I am doing this the hard way.
Plus, after reading all the discussion boards and all the problems people are having... I don't even know if I'll be able to successfully edit this movie once it's imported. Plus, after I've edited it (if I can) will I be able to transfer the clips to another iMovie project?
I'm happy with the file size that the Pinnacle converter is giving me. I'm happy with the way the movie appears in itunes.
Because I have **so many VHS tapes** to convert, I'm asking you all if there is an easier way for me to complete this task!
Thanks in advance for any advise. Keep in mind that I'm not tech-sophisticated..... just a middle aged Grandma trying to preserve memories of my family!

_Share" the highlight as suggested_
Thanks Lennart..... I'm not sure I know what you meant by the above.
Do you mean that I share the little clips I want to use in the 'best of project'?
I read the MacWorld article.... it's great thanks!
I want to keep all these converted movies on my hard drive because down the road I want to extract other clips from them so I can make a 'best of' movie for my other family members. I may want to do that next year.... or whatever..... so I want to have the imovies available for me when that time comes.
In order to do this am I going to have to buy a lot..... and I mean ALOT of extra hard drive space? That darn Canopus was really making files for me that were like 60-80GB's per one half hour movie!!
Hey, I really appreciate all the time you are spending with me on this topic. Making these imovie memories are so very important to me.

Need to copy home movies using Insignia dvd/vhs recorder

I have been attempting for 4 years now to copy my vhs home movies onto dvd. I purchased an Insignia dvd/vhs recorder for this purpose. I finally have been successful in recording the dvd where it will play back on the Insignia machine I copied it on but when I send copies to others or try to test the dvd in another player, it will not play the video. I have tried several types of DVDs as I was told it matters. I though the DVD-R was the correct one to use because it reads that it will play back in video players. At least I can play these back on the recorder but I need them to be able to play for those others I have copied them for and for down the road when we the children no longer have this particular recorder. The dvds finally play back on the recorder but not on my sons dvd player. Everything I have read says dvds must be finalized but when I go to menu and then dvd, the menu will not let me arrow up to the finalize part. What can I do? This is so frustrating and I feel an urgency to get these home movies onto dvd.

Your DVDs do need to be finalized in order to be viewable on other players.
Suggest you sit down with the manual for your unit and read it. It should tell you, step by step, how to record and finalize the disc.
If you find my post useful or informative, please click the icon below with the plus sign and star to give kudos. Thank you!

Codec to use for archiving PAL VHS source

I want to digitise a whole lot of PAL VHS home movie stuff. What do you think are the best settings to convert it to?

this is a straight forward call. with your source of VHS at 256 lines at best + either SP or worse LL
P recorded mode and as hasbeen already recommended to preserve and edit in an economically efficient way, I'd also recommend PAL DV.
at 720x576 resolution to map those 256 VHS scan lines at 4:2:0 At 25Mbs is way more headroo
thAn you u might use for this footage.
as an I-frame format u can get it it easier with standard or mainstreAm codecs.
moreover u can ingest the vhs via your encoding device (dv camera or dv encoding box) and catch it on mini-dv media as DV for later ingest to something like fcp.
u must consider the ramifications of maintaini g your family jewels to the charge of spinning disk storage at roughly 11.75GB/hour as well. it is wise to consider how much storage on disk you need for a small amount of 100 hours of DV with only one instance.
this capturing directly to disk may not be economical for you.
also the trAgedy of losing this stuff on disk should be of concern as well.
so a big box of mini-dv media for use as a stop gap for your act of reclamation and preservation is a good way to stArt I think. (this is what I did some 4 years back)
I ditched all my VHS, hi8, dv, hdv and other guages and maintain all my psersonal and commercial content on LTO4 ultrium data tape. this may be more than u want to do however the concern of the access (future) and longevity of your family jewels should factor in greatly in any workflow and archive u wanna do.
I expect like most of us you may have 100's of hours of stuff that probable run and gun and uneditted and you wanna pass this to your grand kids. if so due to the digital world of cmf (contemporary media formats) that are outdated or superceded each 2 years (LOL) consideration for migrating your daily jewels every 8 to 10 yearsneeds great attention
yep stick with dv pal for the present maybe avc-infra may be worth a look inthe future or my personal favourite lossless motion jpeg2000.
also consider use of h.264 proxies and some shot or scene logs and any metadata scheme for your stuff. u can use a simple numbers / excel spreadshheet to tie the footage essence and proxies (on disk)
I use a OSX based MAM caLled CATDV. worth a look.
done this a lot so pm if u need help

I had my home movies put on a DVD, they have a bup extension, can they be transferred into itunes and play on my Ipad?

I had my old 8mm home movies transferred to dvd's, they have a .bup extension, is it possible to download them into itunes and play them on my ipad2

Yes. Is the short answer.
You can directly connect the speaker out port of the Mac mini to an input on the AV Receiver which then feeds your speakers. This would be an audio only solution. If you use a TOS-Link connection this will be a pure digital connection ensuring the best quality (important for audiophiles).
You can if you wish connect the video from the Mac mini to the AV Receiver, and if you have a Mac mini with HDMI or a Mini Displayport you can run the audio and video via a single cable. (Older models would use two cables, the aforementioned TOS-Link pus a DVI to HDMI cable.)
If you do connect the video output from the Mac to the AV Receiver you can then display this on your TV, and have as one possibility iTunes displayed with perhaps one of the iTunes visualisers playing along with the music. Another possibility would be to use FrontRow on the Mac.
A different approach would be to have the Mac mini stream over a network to a device e.g. the Sonos Zoneplayer which is then connected to the AV Receiver. An AirPort Express is also able to do this.

Importing DVD Home Movies

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get for 20$ the Apple mpeg2 plugin
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http://danslagle.com/mac/iMovie/tips_tricks/6010.shtml
http://danslagle.com/mac/iMovie/tips_tricks/6018.shtml

Old home movies into iMovie

My father-in-law had some old home movies put onto a DVD and I wanted to put them with music with iMovie how can up convert the old movies on the DVD into a format I can use in iMovie. I copied the disc onto my computer using disc utilty and came up with a .cdr file
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You can extract video from a DVD, but you will lose some quality.
http://www.dvdxdv.com/NewFolderLookSite/Products/DVDxDV.products.htm
Have a look at this thread for a bit more information:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=4562113&#4562113
A simpler method would be to just put the DVD in a DVD player, connect your miniDV camcorder to the player and just record the DVD to DV tape that way. There would be some loss of quality, but if the original movies were VHS or even the old reel-to-reel tapes, the loss would probably not be detectable. I have done this on occasion, and it worked fine. Having old VHS footage on a DVD improved it quite a bit, so recording from DVD to DV camcorder still produced a movie that was better than the original.

Archiving old VHS home movies

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