Convert you home videos from DV and Mini DV tapes before you find it becomes too difficult.

This week I had an interesting task to assist a client import their videos from their Sony TRV355E video camera. The video camera is quite an old video camera and uses full size DV tapes.

The client had an older notebook running Windows XP which had a FireWire 1394 port, but it was found we couldn’t get the communication to work. The quality of using USB streaming wasn’t good enough and using a video capture device would have also produced lower than desirable quality videos.

In the end I was able set the client up with the ability to bring their videos from their old video camera into their newer Windows 7 computer.

I decided it was a good time with my own home movies to convert older mini DV tapes and store the videos as files on a hard drive (duplicate copies on separate devices for backup). Right now it was easier to use old hardware and software with the video camera but it won’t be too long before the older computer will be obsolete and I may not have an easy method to import the videos and the highest possible quality.

If you have old home movies on tapes or old technology, now is a good time to review the technology you are using. It won’t be long before DVDs are considered old technology so think ahead and convert your movies to files that you can at least have available for the next 5-10 years before we have to again convert them because technology continues to change. If you have already converted your old movies to DVDs then perhaps revisit your movies. You may have converted the movies and reduced the quality when you converted from DV or Mini DV tapes.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
Call 0415 910 703 for computer support.
Servicing Doncaster, Templestowe, Eltham and the surrounding area.