Merry Christmas Family!
In a year where we family get-togethers aren’t possible, I am happy to share with you some memories from long ago. After years of attempting to digitize our family videos, I was finally able to make it work! Although I wanted to have this available much earlier, I had some setbacks with the technology. If you want to learn more about the lengthy process of converting the tapes, I did a quick explainer at the bottom of the page.
Although it was time-consuming reviewing, color-grading, and editing hours of home movies, it was well worth it and was a great reminder of how much of a loving and incredible family I have! I am still working my way through some of the videos and will make you all aware as soon they are available. I hope you all enjoy the final products!
I love you all, Merry Christmas!
- Ema
How I did it…
Who would have thought that MiniDV tapes are nearly impossible to convert to digital??
The original camera that we had was a struggle to deal with. After a few years of tinkering with the camera, I was able to get it to play tapes but it wouldn’t send out any video to actually convert the tapes. I decided to just purchase a new camera that I knew would work. Once I had the camera working, I came across the next hurdle… the tapes were damaged. I spent a few weeks learning how to splice together damaged tape (cool!) and was able to save about 80%. I am still working on the other 20%. Now that the tapes were working, I had to connect it to my computer to digitize the tapes. This was easily the hardest part!
After countless different attempts and eBay orders for different parts, I was finally able to make it work! The final rig that I set up was a brand new DV video camera I found on eBay, 3 different adapters (DV to Firewire to USB) connected to my MacBook through a USB adapter.
All in all, it was worth it because I was able to spend my time bringing back and preserve what I hope are great memories for you all!