From Analog to Digital

1
From Analog to Digital

• Giving New iLife to Old Movies and Records

2
From VHS to DVD

• Youve got all those old movies on VHS and youre
  thinking Why not transfer them to the Mac and
  burn them to DVDs?
• Good thought!
• With a Mac and iLife 04 its almost painless!

3
The Tools

• A VCR - the better the VCR, the more likely
  youll get a good playback even from an old tape.
  (make sure the heads are clean)
• Digital camcorder or converter deck.
• Your superdrive equipped Mac running 10.2.8 or
  later and iLife 04 - or a Mac with an external
  DVD burner.
• A few cables and a blank DVD

4
The Process

• Hook up the VCR to the camcorder or converter
  deck (RCA cables or S-Video)
• Hook up your camcorder to your mac (firewire)
• Some considerations
• A large external firewire drive. (digital video
  records at 200 meg a minute. 60 minutes12 gig)
• S-Video VCR is a much better signal than standard
  rca cables.

5
Preparing Your Tape

• Acclimate Your Tapes
• If theyve been stored in high humidity - let
  them sit for a few hours. High humidity is your
  enemy here.
• Shuttle Your Tapes
• Fast forward to the end, then rewind - ensuring
  snug tape throughout the cartridge
• Check Your Tracking
• Chances are youll need to make adjustments here.

6
Plan Your Project

• If its a straight transfer - turn on iMovie and
  import.
• If your home movies are a mish-mosh of events,
  youll need to plan out how the video will be
  presented in its final form.
• Its still ok to just let iMovie import
  everything and do the editing later, but
  sometimes planning ahead actually saves more time.

7
Importing

• Dont import everything but err to the safe side
  of including even the boring stuff time chanes
  our perspective!
• iMovie records 9 minutes and 28 seconds for each
  clip (2 gig limit)
• Scan lines - youll see scan lines at the bottom
  - ignore them - when played back on a DVD player
  and TV - you wont see them.

8
Edit and Exporting

• As demonstrated before, assemble your clips, add
  music, titles, transitions etc. if desired.
• Set chapters in iMovie for iDVD to use.
• When all is set (remember - save often), click
  the iDVD button and export.
• Choose your themes, set up the DVD and write your
  movies for the world to enjoy for the next 100
  years!

9
Let's Play!