I’ve been working “not exactly diligently” in digitizing all my old VHS & 8mm videos and it’s a tougher project to do that I initially realized. I would have wanted to be done by now but it’s become very hard. I am very far from being done.
It’s not hard doing the digitizing per se, that part is very easy. I connect the video camera (or the old VHS player) to the computer, start my little program, then press play and voila’. I leave it to do the job for itself. I have a Mac & I use something called VIDBOX and it works very well. After I am done I upload the video to YouTube, making the videos private, which means only the people with the link can see them, then I watch them to make sure they look and transferred OK.
Most of the time this is the first time I’ve seen these videos, and even if I’ve seen them before, it’s been so long they are basically new to me.
There is something to be said about watching these splashes of your own life that you’ve forgotten. It’s strange. You look at it with a different perspective even if you do remember them. It gives you a window to the past that is really hard to watch on occasion. It’s all really wonderful and terrifying at times.
I have videos of Alex, my baby that was stillborn at full term, for example. Insanely sad and almost impossible to watch. Yet, I am so grateful I have them.
Then there are the videos of my grandma. I want to watch those over and over again.
Then there’s baby Nicky. I love, love, love these. Here’s a little window to Nicky at 4.5 months old:
This past spring, after 10 years of not taking any videos except little 10 seconds here and there with my actual photo camera, I splurged and got another video camera after rewatching some of these old videos. I was on to something. Some of these videos will help me someday. And even if not, perhaps, future generations might enjoy.
To life <3
Love & Light,