Converting Mini DV to Digital and DVD

Materials/Software needed

• Mini DV camcorder
• Firewire cable(or however the camcorder connects to the computer to transfer video)
• Capture software - I used Windows Movie Maker which comes standard with my Windows XP OS
• Converter/Burning software - I downloaded DVD Flick which can compile a bunch of videos together and burn them on a DVD using ImgBurn.
• DVD-R
• Jewel Cases(optional)

Process

1. Connect the Camcorder to the computer using the firewire cable.  Once connected the computer will recognize the camcorder and open the appropriate capture software, which by default on my computer is Windows Movie Maker. 
   
2. Once this program launches it will run you through a wizard which will allow you to select the settings you want for the backed up image. 
   
3. Run through the wizard, I recommend ripping at the highest Bitrate possible to have better clarity for the DVD, note that we are backing this up digitally so make sure your computer has enough space for it.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 for the number of tapes that you have
5. Once you have all of the tape digitized you can back them up onto a server/flash drive/external drive before you start burner the DVDs
6. I backed up my files to my hosted server using the FTP client FileZilla. 
   
7. While backing them up I started to burn them onto DVD.
8. I started the process with DVD flick which converts the digital files into a format that can be burnt onto a DVD.
9. To start a Project select New Project -> Add Title(a Title is a video clip)
10. Before you select Create DVD, click on the settings and then click on burning and select Write to DVD otherwise it will not burn it once it has extracted it into the approved format...this must be done everytime.
    
11. Once you have selected Write to DVD click Create DVD and it will go through the process and burn it on your DVD. 
    
12. Once the burning is done, which usually takes about one hour and a half, test it out in your home DVD player to confirm it burned

The only thing this software didn't ccome with that I wish it had was the ability to create a menu for the DVD.  That isn't as big of a deal with the home movies I'm doing but it would have been coo if it had it.