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hdsalinas

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 28, 2006
397
0
San Pedro Sula, Honduras
HI,

I have a sony handycam that I use for our family movies. I usually record many different events on a single tape that I then import to imovie edit and burn. When everything is done I end up with a DVD with unrelated events.

I am thinking of just editing single events at a time and then burn them to a dvd. But if I do it this way I will end up with a bunch of DVDs with only 20 to 30 minutes of video.

How do you guys manage your home videos?
 

bigcreek

macrumors member
Apr 23, 2004
30
0
I am in the same boat. Years worth of video's, on stacks of DVD's. I am exploring the possibilities of converting those to H.264, and loading them up on an apple TV. Just let iTunes manage them.
 

ftaok

macrumors 603
Jan 23, 2002
6,485
1,571
East Coast
Apple's newest solution is iMovie'08. If you haven't tried it, you might want to check it out. But be ready to pony up for more hard drive space.

iMovie'08 behaves very much like iPhoto, but for videos.

When you import footage, iMovie'08 catalogs everything into a "library". Events are created based on date/time. Your Project can access the footage on the library and you can edit, cut/paste, trim, etc any footage in the library.

When you're done, you can export your projects to YouTube or to FrontRow, etc.

ft
 

hdsalinas

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 28, 2006
397
0
San Pedro Sula, Honduras
I have imovie 06 and 08 and I think each has its advantages over the other. I just dont feel comfortable with the idea of storing precious moments of my 1 year old on a harddrive. I rather have a physical hard copy like a DVD and store it in a nuclear-holocaust-proof place.

I am a huge fan of keeping records of the past with photos and videos and I religiously try to embed the date of events for posterity. I just need a system to create and maintain a catalogue of videos for year to come,
 

jbstew32

macrumors regular
Jan 15, 2007
146
1
I've never messed with iDVD, but doesn't it let you create menus for DVDs?

Couldn't you put multiple home movies on a DVD that's arranged into chapters with a menu like retail DVDs have? Again, I've never tried it, so maybe it's not as easy as I imagine it.
 

ftaok

macrumors 603
Jan 23, 2002
6,485
1,571
East Coast
I have imovie 06 and 08 and I think each has its advantages over the other. I just dont feel comfortable with the idea of storing precious moments of my 1 year old on a harddrive. I rather have a physical hard copy like a DVD and store it in a nuclear-holocaust-proof place.

I am a huge fan of keeping records of the past with photos and videos and I religiously try to embed the date of events for posterity. I just need a system to create and maintain a catalogue of videos for year to come,

I also agree that iMovies '06 and '08 each has their own advantages. I liked '06 for all of the features, however, I like '08 because it's so quick and easy. Plus, you don't spend time rendering transitions and stuff.

As for backing up your video, there are several ways to do so.

1. Invest in extra hard drives and back up religiously.

2. Shoot on tape and the tape will be the back-up.

3. Copy the tape onto another tape.

4. If you shoot on Flash (i.e. SDHC cards), after importing a card, burn it onto a DVD.

I really like the way '08 catalogs video. It's so much easier having all of my footage in one place instead of sitting around on DV tapes, never to be used. By having a library system, I'm more likely to edit quick 5 minute videos that can be watched on FrontRow. It's the new version of the old Slide Show, without the cheese. :D

ft
 

Roy Hobbs

macrumors 68000
Apr 29, 2005
1,860
286
My way is simple:

Just keep the original DV tape and keep a copy of the final project on a DVD
 

seany916

macrumors 6502
Jun 26, 2006
470
0
Southern California
keep your events seperate on different DVDs

it costs a few pennies more, but far easier to maintain if you capture footage often.

label your DVDs BEFORE you shoot. keep them organized by Month & year, clearly labeled. all of them stay together in one area.
 

mcarnes

macrumors 68000
Mar 14, 2004
1,928
0
USA! USA!
QT h.264 and put them all on a hard drive. Have two backups of that drive that you rotate and keep at different locations.

Do it now or do it later, but you'll do it eventually...
 

MrLubeMan

macrumors newbie
Oct 9, 2007
19
0
Living the dream
Managing Home Videos

I am not a pro but I love to use iMovie to edit my family movies and iDVD to burn them. I upload the various clips into iMovie then edit them and end up with at least one DVD per year. If we go on a cool vacation then I will make a movie/DVD of just that trip. I always burn two copies, one as a backup (stored) in a friends house. The other for our use. I will soon be adding the apple TV and will also put them all on the hard drive. The kids LOVE to watch these movies and they do it all the time. I wish we had this stuff when I was a kid. Good luck. :D
 

TheReef

macrumors 68000
Sep 30, 2007
1,888
167
NSW, Australia.
I recently dititised about 10 hours of our VHS footage.
I broke up each event eg "at the park", "playing with toys" into clips (it was one continous stream of video :S) and added chapter markers.

About 1.5 hours per disk, and about 12 chapter markers for each disk (with iDVD) made it so much easier to find certain events that fast forwarding through hours of tape. On the DVD, print the list of chapter markers.

Works great for me. Now with digital, I do pretty much the same thing, import all my different events into one project, and when I reach the 4 hour limit, I add chapter markers and burn to DL DVD. I also add dates to the chapter marker names and store disks in a little flip-sleve case in order.

It isn't that much work when working with digital, and it keeps my HDs' space free. This may seem less convinient but when you label your disks correctly, it is so much nicer and easier than having movies scattered over your computer's HDs.
 
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