Tech Tuesday: I Made My First DVD!
I made my first DVD, and got it right on the first try! It was nice not to waste any DVDs!
On the downside, I discovered box of DVDs I had purchased a couple months ago had only 14 DVDs in it, instead of 20. Too late, probably, to complain to the company I ordered from. I ordered a 20-pack, and they sent me a single DVD. I eMailed to tell them about it, and they immediately sent out a box. Now, I discover I was still shorted! Argh!!! Don’t know how I didn’t notice; I guess it was because the box felt full.
Anyway, on Sunday, I finished converting an old video tape to digital form. And, on Monday, I decided to put together a DVD of all the cat videos, so that we’d have something to watch Monday evening when everything was in reruns.
The clips were all captured with QuickTime Pro and saved as .mov files. I thought the easiest way to make a DVD would be with Apple’s iDVD software that comes installed on most (if not all?) new Macs as part of iLife.
Well, I was wrong.
The iDVD program will only let me use video from iMovie, photos from iPhoto or Photo Booth or audio from iTunes or GarageBand. Not QuickTime clips stored elsewhere (i.e., where I want them) on the hard drive. Which is stupid.
True, I could import all my QuickTime clips into iMovie and then save them and then use iDVD, but that seemed like a waste of time, due to being doubling of efforts and all. After all, the clips were already saved on the hard drive!
So, forget iDVD and iMovie.
Instead, I fired up Adobe Premiere Pro CS3. I didn’t go to it in the first place, as I figured it wouldn’t be as easy to make a DVD, especially seeing as how the last time I used Premiere on a regular basis, the DVD specification wasn’t even finalized yet!
Anyway, I pulled all my clips together, added a soundtrack and exported to Adobe Encore CS3. It did it’s thing. I stuck in a blank DVD. And, a short time later, I had a finished DVD!
I first tried it in the computer’s DVD drive, and it played. (It also asked me to set my Region, as apparently this was also the first DVD I’ve watched on this computer!) Next was the bigger question: Would it play in the actual DVD player (the one connected to the TV)?
Yes!
Success!
Some of the old video didn’t look too bad. Other bits weren’t quite as clear as what a newer camera might do. But, at least know I have some old memories preserved on DVD! (And I still have the original video tapes too.)
Many of the videos are 18 years old, so I’m lucky the video hasn’t deteriorated more than it has. From time to time, there will be some issues with the video that tracking and other options cannot fix. But, for the most part, the clips have been well-preserved, despite the video tapes not always being stored under optimal conditions! (But, they weren’t exposed to excessive heat or cold. And, they weren’t played frequently either; most haven’t been played in years, if ever! Most were probably only watched once after recording, just to make sure I got it!) And, a good portion of the videos were on long play tapes (recording six hours on a tape instead of two), which is a no-no. But, I didn’t know that then!
So, now I just have to find the rest of my recorded videos, which is somewhat difficult as the last 80-100 tapes aren’t marked. Before I got a full-time job (and even when I was still in school), I somehow found the time to watch a video tape and then write (down to the start and stop times) what was on the top. A job is about the same number of hours as school, and usually there’s no homework, yet there seems to be less time in the day… So, that’s how I have a bunch of unmarked tapes…
If you have any old VHS tapes you made in your camcorder, and you haven’t converted them to digital yet, now is the time! While tapes have the potential to last 100 years, many have an anticipated lifetime of about twenty years. My oldest tape, the one done in 1989 (or maybe it was 1988), had the most deterioration in it.
If you can’t convert them yet, make sure they are stored properly. High humidity (or lack of humidity) can cause problems, as will extreme temperatures. Sunlight, dust, cigarette or other smoke can also cause deterioration, as will exposure to strong magnetic fields. You should also rewind them and keep them stored upright. Don’t play them too often either!
And, once you save them to a digital format, don’t forget to occasionally save them to new media from time to time, lest you be stuck with a bunch of memories in a format future computers won’t be able to access!
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