Sorry if this is the wrong forum.  But I'd like to take more videos and learn how to download them and maybe learn to edit and make video's of shooting, especially to music.  I love that stuff.  But also for other things too.

First question is, I have a VHS/C video camera.  Is there any way in creation to transfer those to digital format.  Like windows player or whatever.  I'm clueless about this stuff but am wondering.  I know I can ship them off to Kodak and get them burnt to a CD and that might be the way to go but just wondering if anybody has any knowledge or experience with this.  

Thanks for the help.

I know some about the hardware needed for capture and editing, not much about the actual shooting, though.

As far as hardware, you could get a tuner or capture device like WinTV, Dazzle, or All-in-Wonder or a miniDV camcorder with pass-through. (I currently use the last one, but I've worked with others as well.) You will also need a huge amount of hard-drive space dedicated to editing. One hour of DV video is over 13GB! One DVD is 4.5GB. At least 1GB of RAM is also a minimum.

In my opinion, get a miniDV camera. The prices on good point-n-shoot cameras is even lower then when I got mine two years ago. Just make sure it can be used to convert your old VHS-C tapes as well. (I made that mistake once, and I am thankful I realized it before I couldn't take it back and get the other one.)

A good starter program that will capture and edit, (but not burn DVD's,) is Windows Movie Maker. It's a simple editor, it's mostly easy, and free.
Now if you have space and time to learn it, you can try ZS4 Video Editor. It's free and powerful, but it's taxing on the computer, and it's hard to learn.

I'd recommend to check out this website: VideoHelp.com They have lots of guides and information that I've found helpful.

Wow, thanks for the info.  I'll have to follow up with some of that.  I should be ok with size and speed of my computer.  I got 160 gigs with a gig and 256 of ram.  Maybe I'll try the winows movie maker. I really like the windows media player.  The sound quality is alot better than realplayer.  At least the version of realplayer I had on my last computer.  Now I use the same speakers with the windows media player and I don't get any distortion.  But I did with the realplayer.  (that's kind of a side note)  Thanks for the info!!!!!

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Quoted: Wow, thanks for the info.  I'll have to follow up with some of that.  I should be ok with size and speed of my computer.  I got 160 gigs with a gig and 256 of ram.  Maybe I'll try the winows movie maker. I really like the windows media player.  The sound quality is alot better than realplayer.  At least the version of realplayer I had on my last computer.  Now I use the same speakers with the windows media player and I don't get any distortion.  But I did with the realplayer.  (that's kind of a side note)  Thanks for the info!!!!!

You're welcome. I can tell you right now, though, that 256MB of RAM is not going to be enough for serious work. If you have to make do with it, be sure to close ALL programs you are not using for video work.

It turns out, which is probably obvious to most, that my computer has windows movie maker. The challenge comes when xferring it to a file that that program will read.  We took some movies with my camera, and used a trial of "Digital Media Converter" to convert the quicktime (that's what Kodak uses) video to the proper file.  It cost $ 39.95 though.  Then I found a free one but I want to wait until I either figure out how to make my VHS-C digital or a better camera.  We have a 3 megapixal camera and the quality of the video sucks.  It's not worth all the hassle until I can have a better video to start with.

Quoted: Quoted: Wow, thanks for the info.  I'll have to follow up with some of that.  I should be ok with size and speed of my computer.  I got 160 gigs with a gig and 256 of ram.  Maybe I'll try the winows movie maker. I really like the windows media player.  The sound quality is alot better than realplayer.  At least the version of realplayer I had on my last computer.  Now I use the same speakers with the windows media player and I don't get any distortion.  But I did with the realplayer.  (that's kind of a side note)  Thanks for the info!!!!! You're welcome. I can tell you right now, though, that 256MB of RAM is not going to be enough for serious work. If you have to make do with it, be sure to close ALL programs you are not using for video work.

I don't know how to say it properly.  Our computer came with 256 ram but we added a Gig over and above that.  It wasn't real clear when I said it the first time.