I want to make everything digital

[pinion]

I have a ton of pictures that I want digital. I have some video that I want digital. I have some cassette tapes that I want digital. Mainly the pictures though. How can I digitize them fast? I remember a box that would scan them all in for me. I want that but with awesome quality. Looking to spend less than $2000.

[Speedy]

Scanner. Or hire a company to do the photos.

VHS to DVD: http://www.roxio.com/enu/products/easy-v...easyvhsmac

[Seacrest]

Don't do it.
It'll just fill your head with numbers and that can't be good for you.

[mattkime]

digitize as you're interested in the material

[colonel panic]

I just finished digitizing all of my analog tapes (and albums):

VHS: Sony VHS > Grass Valley/Canopus ADVC 300 > Mac Pro
Albums: Techniques turntable > MBOX Pro > Mac Pro
Cassettes: Nakamichi cassette deck > Tascam DAT SPDIF out > MBOX Pro > Mac Pro
Reel to Reel: Otari 50/50 > Tascam DAT SPDIF out > MBOX Pro > Mac Pro
Professional Beta: loaded into Avid system then saved as Quicktime files
MultiTrack Tapes: Used a local service, Dreamhire, to transfer multitracks to Pro Tools sessions

Now I just need to edit and organize.

[davester]

This topic comes up pretty often. I'd suggest going back and reading some of the threads. It is important to run the numbers and understand how big a job it is before launching into it. The number of hours that it will take to digitize just your photos alone will likely astound you. I thought I was going to buy a scanner and do this but then I realized that I didn't want to spend the next few years of all my free time slaving over a scanner. Here's my solution:

Albums: Used my Luxman turntable through a Griffin iMic to record out of print albums. All other stuff it is much easier and not too costly to download. The time involved in setting up, recording, then (the big time sink) editing and dividing up the songs is way too involved to make it worth doing for albums you can buy already digitized. I'm not above procuring free downloads of music I already own, bearing in mind that the record companies claim that this is illegal.

Cassettes: Ditto, though cassettes are already pretty low quality items so generally not worth trying to record.

Analog video: I bought off ebay a Sony Digital 8 camcorder that will play analog 8 mm tapes or take analog video input and convert it on the fly to digital firewire output to iMovie. I then sold the camcorder for what I bought it for after I digitized my analog movies. This is a good do it yourself thing to do. Make sure to buy a camcorder or other device that allows analog --> digital passthrough. Many of the cheaper ones don't do that.

Photos: The time involved in scanning and then straightening/color correcting photos is absolutely insane. Unless you only have a hundred or less, don't even think about it except for a few of your faves that you want to lavish extra time on. Send them out either to Costco or Digmypics.com. You will get a far better result for not too much money.

[voodoopenguin]

davester wrote: Albums: Used my Luxman turntable through a Griffin iMic to record out of print albums. All other stuff it is much easier and not too costly to download. The time involved in setting up, recording, then (the big time sink) editing and dividing up the songs is way too involved to make it worth doing for albums you can buy already digitized. I'm not above procuring free downloads of music I already own, bearing in mind that the record companies claim that this is illegal.

Although there will be people here who will say we shouldn't, I also have done that but add in some "rules" of my own. These are not to make the process any more legal, I know that in court it probably wouldn't stand up but if there is a choice of download quality then I go for mp3s rather than AIFFs or WAVs as with my own good quality turntable and digitiser set up I believe that my well looked after vinyl albums would produce a better recording if I used that, i.e. I'm not gaining an improvement in quality with the download. Of course with my hearing loss the sound is still fine for me. Also, and I think this is important, I do not then sell the originals.

Depending on what I am wanting to achieve I have two methods for digitising video. The easiest is to play the whole tape direct into the HD in my Panasonic DVD recorder. The basic editing allowed means that a single recording of up to 6 hours can be quickly divided up in to the different sections I want to keep, losing all the ads, blank spaces and other extra stuff. After doing that for a few tapes I can then dub shows across to a blank DVD keeping similar programmes together as I wish. When the DVD is full it gets finalised and stored in one of those large books with disc pockets. At some point I realise that I will probably transfer all those discs to an HD with Handbrake or something similar but at the moment I don't feel the need.

For better quality video, personal stuff etc. I digitise by playing the video into my iMac via a digitiser straight into iMovie where I can do much more sophisticated editing with transitions and effects and with iDVD create menus, chapters and finally a DVD. This is more time consuming but worth it for the more special recordings.

For both audio and video I use a Firewire Formac Studio digitiser.

Photos and slides? As noted this is not something to be undertaken lightly as it takes a huge amount of time. My wife and I have scanning sessions every now and then and as a team we are steadily getting through the vast number of photos that we have taken over the years as well as ones from our families, some going back over 100 years! The MacBook Pro is set up with an extra monitor, the Epson Perfection 3200 Photo scanner, a Bluetooth keyboard and an external HD. Together we get a routine going for doing 2 strips of negatives at a time which the software automatically sees as individual photos, saving to the HD and recording to a book all information we can. Transparencies can be done 4 at a time and normal size photos (when we don't have the negative) about 2 at a time. The set up will be left on the table for about two or three days and we have occasional hour long sessions with it. Any longer can be tiring without a break but it is usually great fun as we come across long forgotten bits of our past.

Paul

[Rolando]

David Pogue did a writeup on a scan service.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/14/techno...pogue.html

I've taken unknown negatives to Walmart for scanning, ok quality, but it tells you if its worth doing better.

For video, usually I just record VHS into a DVD recorder while I'm doing other things. Best quality will give you two hours of DVD time, so its not easy. Record two hours, start recording another two on another disc. Import the DVD ( i convert to DV with MPEG Streamclip). By the time that's finished, you have another two hours recorded.

If you are transferring recorded TV, I like to keep commercials as part of the recording, put the chapter stops after them so you can skip, but they usually will bring up memories the first time, skippable afterwards.

Finally I convert the video to 320x240 MP4. It doesn't look any worse than 640x480 fullscreen, and the 640 size has some kind of hexagonal noise that gets covered up at the low rez


edit to add link

[graylocks]

Rolando wrote:
David Pogue did a writeup on a scan service.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/14/techno...pogue.html

Wow! life in the modern age. i've been trying to get a photobook project together for two years now and the hold-up has been finding time to scan old photos. for $50 this is almost making me cry. why didn't someone tell me! :banghead: i know, i should have asked the Forum.

[bazookaman]

Rolando wrote:
David Pogue did a writeup on a scan service.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/14/techno...pogue.html

Good article.