Digitizing
old videos
BACK IN THE “OLD” VHS video camera era, most of us thought the tapes
bearing our cherished memories would last forever. Unfortunately, the truth is
video lasts only 10 to 30 years. At some point in that life span, the quality will
start to degrade and the memories may be gone forever. But technology has a
way of providing solutions for its shortcomings. If you have a computer, you
can protect your family history by converting those analog treasures to digital
ones, and you don’t have to be a technical wizard to do it. All you need is time
and some techno-tools.
The right stuff
Digitizing video proves to be a memory hog. In order to minimize any
potential frustration, your computer should have plenty of RAM (random
access memory) and a decent processing speed. The general recommendation
is no less than 512 MB of RAM and at least a 2. 8 GHz CPU (central processing
unit or processor). More of each is better. Many computers on the market
today have at least 1 GB of RAM, but basic computers might have slower
processors. It’s not that you won’t be able to achieve the task, but you may
have to wait longer for it to be completed, and you can pretty much forget
about multi-tasking.
When you transfer video from VHS to digital files, you’ll want to store
them on your computer for editing before burning to DVD. This takes an enormous amount of disk space, so be sure to have at least 40 to 120 GB of free
space available. If your computer does not have a large disk drive, you can
always purchase an external drive for a reasonable amount of money.
