Weblog of Shaun

Listening to: Still Paul Weller

Our basic aim here is to transfer the digitised signal to a hard drive for editing and formatting into a file type and file structure which can be burnt onto a dvd.

To do the basic transfer (from camera to computer) you need a camera that uses the mini dv format and is able to  transfer data out using firewire. ( Now it might be possible to use cameras which use the Hi 8 fromat for example and transfer via usb, but if it is I haven't investigated that)

Firewire is known by 2 other names - IE1394 and for some reason specifically in relation to cameras its known as i-Link. You also need a connecting cable - usually comes with the camera ( sometimes called a dv cable).

Of course you also need a computer which has a firewire card installed and configured for use.....

Mood: Determined
Listening to: Paul Weller

The first step is the basic transfer of the cine picture to a digital format. Apparently there are 2 favoured methods. The first involves filming the projected cine film with a digital camera. The second variation involves a piece of professional kit where the cine film is projected onto a piece of ground glass and then digitised.

The first method lends itself to home use and was my method of choice.

Mood: Nostalgic
Listening to: The Beatles

I knew this was going to be a big project from the start. I knew that I did not know how to do it, I knew I would have to use linux tools and I guessed that the sheer footage of tape would be huge.

(The cine had been taken by my father in law and dates from 1970 - 2000. Many of the tapes I had never seen - indeed there are still half I have not looked at.  My current estimate is that their is probably 10 hours of the stuff on tapes of different legnths form 3 mins to 30 min compilations.)

I was worried at the intial stage about committing to the project as I have a habit of taking on projects that are beyond my current abilities and  going at them often over a period of years to completion. This is not a bad thing in itself but there is a limit to how many you can take on. Sometimes I also wonder if I have a way of working  out which of these are worthwhile.

What decided it for me was seeing how important this was to my family and finding out that we would probably have to spend thousands of pounds to have the volume of tape transferred commercially.

Along the way though I have found other reasons to do it.  Not least, I  have gotten to know and develop clear visual representations for my wife's family history. I have also developed a deeper respect for my father -in- law's  craftsmanship in making the tapes in the first place.

My wife said to her mother that I had now " Been on as many family holidays as she had".  If that's true then they were a different family then, younger obviously but also different from the people that I know today and  living in a strange 20th centuary world.

Mood: Wondering
Listening to: a borrowed compliation tape

Hi , I am currently in the middle of trying to convert old cine films to DVD's for my family and thought it might be interesting ( at least to me) to write about my learning curve in finding out how to do this.

I also wondered if it might be potentially useful to others as I am a linux and open source software user. We linux users know whilst there is a very helpful community of users and masses of information out there, often you have to work very hard at getting just the right info to move onto the next step.

(I am an unashamed linux user and have in the year that I have moved accross form windows had a great deal of fun. This has however come with an equal measure of frustration. It can be a very irritating business but if you want to make the shift from being merely concerned with "how to work things" to "how things work" then you might be interested in using linux.)