DVD to computer

[johnsykes]

I have a DVD of some family get togethers in the early 70's....I had it transferred from an 8mm reel. What program would I need to download the DVD to the computer, and then send it out to members of the family. Your help is much appreciated as
usual

John S.

[Howaboutthat]

John, if you're thinking of emailing the file, it may be too big to send to others. The 'big' companies are very stingy about how many bits and bytes you can include in an email.
As for getting it into your computer, where it would probably be best to make copies back to other dvd's, there are many programs if you do a dvd to computer Google search, but I don't know how reliable or bug-free they are.
Hopefully some of the tech wizards here can help.

[CubbyCam]

Quite honestly John, the easiest thing would be to make them all duplicate DVDs and mail them to them. I did the identical thing of our old family 8mm movies and sent everyone in the family a copy... which they all loved. (well once anyway). If you don't want to do that yourself, there are plenty of places who'd do it for a fee, which shouldn't be too large. It's a worthwhile thing to do.

[crs]

You might look at transferring the movie to a "flash drive" USB stick. Then your recipients would have the option of playing it back on a computer or plugging the "flash drive" into a Blu-Ray, if they have one. Many TVs also have a USB port built into them. Very inexpensive to mail too!

[johnsykes]

As always, many thanks for the advice.

Cheers guys

John

[another dog]

John, a good program for CD's and DVD's is SONIC.

I use it for all my "treasures" of yhe family, and once they (the treasures) have been copird ouce, it's a couple of cliks to do another, and another.

A.D.

[jon]

Most DVD drives come with free software from Roxio or Nero that will do "some stuff". Older machines like yours may have versions of this software that will actually copy a DVD, or even build one from scratch from still or moving pictures. Newer "free versions" typically only create VCDs (Video CDs) and are, in general, of very little real use.

I spent a lot of time a couple of years ago, which I double checked less than 6 months, and concluded that, if you had a newer machine and the free version that came with your machine was not comprehensive enough, Nero 8, 9 or 10 were about the only affordable choice that satisified all three of these:

• Easy enough to use by anyone other than video pros
• could fully handle PAL and NTSC
• could create slide shows in DVD movie format

I've seen it on sale for $30-$50 at least twice each year either locally or on the Nero web site.

All that said, I have not seen Sonic mentioned by Another Dog.