Grandfathers 16mm home movies

[Bob-Stith]

My father has just discovered 2 8" canisters of 16mm home movies my grandfather shot just prior to his death in 1960. Dad is planning to have the film transfered to DVD and editing the resulting file(s) to produce video DVDs that include naration, backgroung music and special effects. Dad has created other family history documents on CD, but this is his first try at video.

My primary questions are:

For the best quality, in what file format should the orignal 16mm film be recorded? What file format would be best for making the family history DVD/CDs for the children and grandchildren.

Dad knows that his 8 year old (PC) system is not up to the task at hand so my next question is how large a hard drive will he need in the new system he is going to buy? It is a given that we will cram as much memory into the system that it will take. And, since the only video imput will be from a DVD, will he need a video capture card? Are there any other hardware considerations?

Do you have any software recomendations?

Thanks
Bob Stith



Also:

Since the data imput is from a DVD only, does he need a video capture card?

[Dean Spiegel]

...well it sounds like he has allot of work ahead of him. I would recommend this:

If this is going to be a one time project (Which is how I got sucked into the Editing craze) than upgrading his system might be an option, but if he wants to do it right the first time, several computer companies offer a movie making package including hardware and software. I just purchased a SONY VAIO MEDIA package that included Adobe Premiere software as well as MS Movie Maker. I loaded my Pinnacle Studio 9 Movie Box and had nothing but problems from the git go. I recently bought SONY VEGAS 6.0 with DVD Architect. I have edited and produced my 1st project and I have to say it was a little intimidating at 1st , but my project looked great! And not a single crash.....if this helps out great! If not let me know.

[pdoyle]

Hi i Just saw you question ,as i have been busy copying my old super 8 films onto DVD, the way i did it was to set up my super 8 projector and screen ,then get my sony handycam camera and point it at the screen and film the movies , i know the handycam disc only gave me around 30mins or so but i had several discs, i then connected my camera to my dvd player recorder and copyed the discs onto a dvd disc , then i loaded this into my computer and edited as one film,saved me buying a capture card, the results were very good. this is worth a try,if your video camera is a vhs you can still connect it to a dvd player recorder.

hope this is of help
pat