New Year Video Transfer/Edit Project - Need Advice

Question

All you experts out there, please tell us if this plan will work?
We have 3 large boxes of family videos that we need to transfer to DVD.
We are about to purchase video-to-DVD transfer equipment. (Sony DVDirect VRD-MC5?)
We have iMovie, but haven't used it yet. We realize there will be a steep learning curve, but we did buy some books to help and have plenty of time to learn.
Plan: 1) Transfer, unedited, the videos to DVD using the Sony. Apparently this requires little oversight. 2) Load the DVD to iMovie for editing. One of us works a night job that often has a lot of down time that can be used to edit these DVDs. 3) Burn a new DVD, the "keeper" and then make copies for all the kids.
Is this our best option? Thanks for sharing your experience!

Answer 1

Given what you have said, I think the EyeTV Hybrid might be a good solution for you, although the Sony box may be OK too, but it will give you fewer options in the future if you or your kids decide to edit or move to the internet.
With the EyeTV Hybrid, you hook it up to the VHS VCR through the red, white and yellow cables out the back. It goes in to EyeTV software on the Mac. At this point, you can transfer it directly to some DVD burning software called [Toast|http://www.roxio.com/enu/products/toast/titanium/overview.html], and never get iMovie involved. If you decide later to send to iMovie for editing, [EyeTV|http://www.elgato.com/elgato/na/mainmenu/products/hybrid/product1.en.htm l] can send it there.
I have found that with the new iMovie 08, I can edit these videos rather quickly, cut out all the jerky camera pans, cut out the redundant scenes, and add titles and music. A movie that would take me a week in iMovie 6, I can now do in an evening.
My biggest advice would be to think through how you will use the video... e.g. DVD, iPod, internet, AppleTV, iMovie, anything you can think of that you will actually use in the near future.
Then, get the hardware and software you need and pick one tape and work it through the whole workflow so you understand everything from front to back. Then you can start picking up the speed and just doing the imports, etc.
1) Where do we purchase a "digital analog converter"? Is there a brand name that works well? You >>make a good point about working with the original. Do we understand correctly that we'd use this >>converter to transfer a VHS playing in a VCR directly to iMovie where it could be saved and edited, >>burn a DVD, and then move on to the next VHS tape?
Canopus sells digital audio converters, which converts your analog into DV format, which is a good format for editing. The EyeTV, mentioned above, will take your analog and save it is MPEG2, which is the format that DVD players use, but requires some extra conversion before you edit it. So if you are primarily doing editing, go with the Canopus. If you are going straight to DVD, the EyeTV is fine.
2) Does the Wii work like the Sony playbox? These are new things for us..., but we do have a Wii >> now - got it for Christmas.
Enjoy your Wii. I have heard they are great, but it will not help you play video (that I know of). The reason that some people use the Playstation 3 is that it has a built in BluRay player that can play high definition movies, and i has the added quality that you don't have to burn a BluRay DVD to put high definition content on it. You can use a thumb drive, for example. Not really relevant to your application.
3) Does an Apple TV actually store the movies then? Can they later be downloaded, edited, and >> saved to DVD or whatever is the latest thing? (Obviously we don't have an Apple TV and don't >> know a thing about them.) Would this be a quick fix? If we could store them now, be able to
view them easily, and later, as we have time, we could edit and burn them to a DVD, that might >> be worth the money.
With the Apple TV, you can either store the movies on your Mac, or you can store them on the Apple TV. Usually, you would want to use the TV to watch edited movies, not long unedited ones. When a movie is ready for TV, it is already in a format that can be burned (h.264). If you ever watch movies on an iPhone, it is the same format, but a better picture because the video is created at larger dimensions and at a higher data rate. The TV is primarily a convenience, because you can pick your movies off a menu. You don't have to get up and change DVDs.