Wedding DVD

[Redguard]

Got married in 2003.

We have the raw footage of the wedding on VHS, but I want to have it edited and burned onto DVD (with the menu items, deleted scenes, all that nice stuff).

Has anyone here ever done that? What kind of companies offer the service? Alternatively, what computer programs could I use to do this myself? (PC, not MAC).

Thanks

 

[selune]

We recently purchased a usb plug-in device that connects a VCR or camcorder to your computer and you can transfer material, then edit, then burn to dvd or transfer back to vhs if you wish. It's called Pinnacle Systems Studio MovieBox USB Version 9 and we got it at best buy. There are probably other similar things, we've found it works well so far.

 

[Redguard]

My wife works at Best Buy.

I'll tell her to look into it. Thanks!

So... when the footage is transferred over, is it then saved as one gigantic MPEG?

 

[selune]

yep. It takes a lot of space while you're working on it. Every 4 1/2 minutes of recorded footage takes 1 gig of space so you are limited by your hard drive in that aspect. They recommend having a separate hard drive for this if you have space concerns, but an 80 gig hard drive would give you plenty of space for doing a video at a time. You can edit scenes and add music and title pages and such. We're working on our first transfer still, but have found it relatively easy to go through. The final product looks good on the pc, we're going to try and burn it this week and see how things work on the reg. dvd player. It's a lot of fun too. I feel like such a techno geek...

 

[Redguard]

Ooooh... I think I'll need to get a new HD for something like that.

I'm a bit of a techno geek too. I'm using Quark Xpress and Photoshop to make our own customized digital photo album, lol.

So, the program lets you create a menu screen as well? Segmented chapters... deleted scenes, Behind the Scene Groom commentary?

 

[LiberatedChick]

Got married in 2003.

We have the raw footage of the wedding on VHS, but I want to have it edited and burned onto DVD (with the menu items, deleted scenes, all that nice stuff).

Has anyone here ever done that? What kind of companies offer the service? Alternatively, what computer programs could I use to do this myself? (PC, not MAC).

Thanks

My dad just completed our wedding dvd yesterday. It's wonderful He used a combination of Photoshop, Quark Xpress, After Effects and Director though the main programme he used was Adobe Premier. He's put in menus, wonderful effects, music and transitions. Took him ages and it does use a lot of disc space. Our footage was taken with two cameras, one a digital camcorder and one VHS camcorder. The digital one transferred to the PC easy. My husband and I tried converting the VHS to .avi files but whilst they played on the PC fine they refused to work in Adobe Premier so my dad couldn't do anything with them. In the end he had to go to a company to get them to convert the VHS into a digital format. Doesn't take long or cost much...just need to locate someone who can do it. Hope this helps.

 

[Redguard]

Thanks, that actually helps a lot!

My mother-in-law works for a local television station and knows some people who can do all the editing for us. But she said that she's unsure as to whether she can get them to get it on DVD... and I'm not sure if I'm completely confident in their abilities to do exactly what my wife and I want.

 

[selune]

Ooooh... I think I'll need to get a new HD for something like that.

I'm a bit of a techno geek too. I'm using Quark Xpress and Photoshop to make our own customized digital photo album, lol.

So, the program lets you create a menu screen as well? Segmented chapters... deleted scenes, Behind the Scene Groom commentary?

yes for everything, as far as I know. You can import sound files, so commentary should be yes too, haven't tried that yet. All the others though work fine.

 

[Southern Cross]

Just be sure to make a high quality copy of the VCR tape before you begin. That way you'll have a backup.

Sam's club has a recordable DVD player on sale for $200 here in FL. I was really surprised as those things were something like $800 a couple of years ago. Anyway, hook up your VCR in series with the DVD player, play your tape, record on DVD and you should be good to go. Then you can download the DVD to your computer and work on the editing.

There's also a computer hookup to attach to your VCR, directs video feed directly to your hard drive. I think it's $179, and it's called govideo or something like that.