Question about converting video camera to computer files

[espn_hall_of_famer]

Another random question to throw out to the techies of the group that know more about this stuff than I.

I have a an older home video camera that I think uses like a Hi8 cassette tape. It doesn't plug into a computer, it simply has A/V out so if you want to see it on a TV, you hook the A/V cables to a TV input to watch it from the camera.

I was thinking it was about time to trash that old camera, but I have these dozen or so Hi8 tapes that contain the 90's and early 2000's on there and there is no way I'm aware of to watch those tapes short of dragging that camera out and hooking up those cables.

So I was thinking about getting them into some type of computer WAV/MPEG file to get them into the 21st century technology and have them easily available on a flash drive. I'm just not sure how to do that.

In my five minutes of research, it appears there is a hardware device called a "Dazzle" that sells for $40 on Amazon and appears to take any A/V device and convert it to a computer file.

Does anyone know if I'm just wasting my $40 and there is a much easier way to do this? Or am I wasting my $40 because these "Dazzle" devices are very picky and won't accept any A/V signal like a TV can? Or am I going down the right path here in forking out the $40 so I can get rid of all of this old equipment and tapes?

Thanks in advance.

 

[julius]

Couldn't you just get a DVD recorder and do it that way?

 

[Denny Crane]

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/tweleve_questions_seven.htm

I like the first option. Get your new camera and go video out from the old one to video in on the new one. Press play on the old one and record on the new one and you have a copy on the new one that you can save to your computer.

 

[espn_hall_of_famer]

Couldn't you just get a DVD recorder and do it that way?

Ironically I have a DVD recorder. But it simply puts the info onto a DVD-R as video that can't be read from a computer (at least my DVD recorder only plays the videos back on that same DVD player - I've not figured out a way to watch those recorded DVD's on any other device, let alone converted into something I could have quick access to as a flash drive MPEG or WAV file since I don't want to get out a big, round DVD every time I want to see a video).

 

[Denny Crane]

The 2nd option in that URL I posted is something like that dazzle device.

A review of the dazzle:

http://www.epinions.com/review/cmhd...zle_Digital_Video_Creator/content_45997133444

 

[julius]

Ironically I have a DVD recorder. But it simply puts the info onto a DVD-R as video that can't be read from a computer (at least my DVD recorder only plays the videos back on that same DVD player - I've not figured out a way to watch those recorded DVD's on any other device, let alone converted into something I could have quick access to as a flash drive MPEG or WAV file since I don't want to get out a big, round DVD every time I want to see a video).

Get DVD Shrink (you have to search for it, I don't have the link) and you can convert it to either iso files, or um....the other type of file that is commonly associated with dvd's (vobs). From there you can use a converter from cnet.com.

I have "any video converter".

 

[Denny Crane]

If he can't watch the DVDs on another device, DVD Shrink probably won't work.

 

[espn_hall_of_famer]

If he can't watch the DVDs on another device, DVD Shrink probably won't work.

I never could figure out that DVD recorder. It was a $100-$150 Costco special about 10-15 years ago when DVD recording first came out to have a VHS/DVD recorder combo unit. I recorded movies over the years from pay-per-view and had them all lined up on shelves to watch as my own "library". Then when I got a modern DVD-Blue Ray player to watch real DVD movies in, I realized for the first time I couldn't watch those movies, it just said "error". I then tried my computer and laptop and a portable DVD player in the car and realized they didn't work there either. So it was a strange phenomenon that I could only watch DVD's that I recorded from that unit. Maybe that's the way they made them, but I always thought it strange.