Journal: News & Comment

Need help converting analog Video8 tapes to VHS or DVD

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My wife and I received a camcorder as a present in 1998, around the time our oldest daughter was born. It was fairly high-tech at the time, using the analog Video8 format. But now it's busted, no longer willing to load tapes.

That's a problem, since we have a fair bit of baby and kid footage on tapes we can no longer play. So, does anyone out there have something we can borrow to convert those Video8 tapes to another format? Perhaps the best would be DVD, but I'd be equally happy with a simple way to convert them to another MPEG or digital movie format on our Mac, or (as a last resort) to VHS analog cassette.

If you have a Digital8 camcorder that can play Video8 tapes and output to FireWire (a.k.a. IEEE 1394 or iLink), that would probably be ideal. Or if you know of a better way that doesn't cost an arm and a leg, please let me know, either in the comments or by email. Thanks!

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