Family Media Archiving Powerhouse

karavite

karavite

Registered
Though I have owned 12 Macs and done lots of things with them, I am having the most fun ever with a computer. You see, my family has about 150 reels of super 8 movies. I am using some dedicated hardware and my DP 1 GHz G4 to transfer all those films to digital. I'm also taking care of old VHS tapes, old audio tapes different people in my family recorded and even learning a bit about photo restoration with Photoshop. The transience of old media of any type is a big issue and will be for - well, probably forever. My Mac is up to any archiving task and I just love the thing to death.

Gadgets I am using with my Mac:

For super and regular 8 mm film transfers: http://www.moviestuff.tv/dv8_sniper.html

AD Video converter: http://www.canopus.us/US/products/ADVC300/pm_advc300.asp
 
Excellent. I just something similar lately with family photos (turned it into a family get-together) and am currently getting ready to digitize all my vinyl 45s and LP albums.
 
Which reminds me... what's the best way to get a line-level source into the iBook for digitizing the records? I imagine there's an audio-only dazzle-like thing that goes over USB, etc, but haven't found anything yet that's not video too. That's overkill for me.
 
The iMic will take either mic or line level signals...

...but it's important to rember that record players are different levels/impedence. So you'll need to find one of those old Radio Shack record-to-line level things.
 
Yeah, It's a magnetic cartridge phono and I've got a pre-amp for it, so that's set. Thanks for the info.
 
I thought transfering 8 mm film to video was tough - records sounds tougher to me! :) How is it going chornbe? I am not a true audiophile, but I have pretty good hifi and time after time when you compare a record with its CD version, the record always wins (as long as it isn't scratched). I'm not kidding - record sound better. However, newer CDs sound better and better and I think this may be due to engineers and better recording methods. Any way, just my 2 cents - good luck with digitizing the records, but don't give them away!
 
CD are sounding better not because of the orgininal engineering, but because of the mastering. The old masters were tuned for vinal records and sounded terrible when put on CD. They are only now getting good a remastering old songs originally intended for vinal. And int the process they are learning how to tune for the digital "clarity" of CD's.
 
Thanks! You explained that very clearly. I have some CD's that are remasters special issues of old vinyl and they sound amazing - from the 60s. Duke Ellington for example. Would it be fair to say the original engineer had his act together? The liner notes on the CD say as much - the whole band on 4 or 8 tracks...
 
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