When customers come to our stores with their old VHS tapes to have them converted to digital format, one of the most common questions is whether they should choose to convert hi8 to dvd transfer the tapes onto a DVD or to external harddrive. These are the two most popular options to store the captured digitized videos.
If you just want to watch your movies, then we recommend to have the videos transferred onto a DVD. On the other hand, if you are planning to edit the videos later, then you shout go for the second option.
Transferring your old home movies to computer files on an external storage device has two main benefits:
The first benefit of storing video files on a hard drive is that the files can be directly imported into your video editing program. We can transfer your home movies to AVI or MOV files based on the type of computer you use. Once the videos have been stored on your hard drive, you can then use your desired video editing application to import the videos into the application and start editing. We recommend using a USB 3.0 storage drive to store the files, as it offer faster speeds.
Another benefit of storing converted video files onto an electronic storage drive is that you get much higher resolution digital file. One hour of video takes up 12 Gig of space on a hard drive. However the same hour of video takes up only 2 Gig on a DVD disc. This should give you an idea the level of compression the file goes through to end up on a disc.
Video files stored on a hard drive are best quality and can edited to produce quality video files in different formats.
The same is the case with transferring other types of old media, such as super 8, 8mm, 16mm, VHS tapes, miniDV, and Hi8 tapes. For many people, they like having all their home movies on one electronic device. They can plug it into their computer and watch different video clips. Compare that convenience to having your family videos on multiple DVD discs that you have to swop in and out.
What if you are not familiar with video editing? Many families when informed of the option of transferring to digital files for the computer - as opposed to transferring your VHS or VCR tapes to DVD - get excited about the prospect of video editing the family footage, but never actually get to convert hi8 to dvd it because they are intimidated by technology or they just got too buy with lives.
As you can see, there's no right or wrong answer to the question whether you should transfer your VHS, VCR, Hi8, or miniDV tapes to a DVD disc or to computer digital files on a hard drive. It really depends on what you plan to do with it.