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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
I have videos of Alex, my baby that was stillborn at full term, for example. Insanely sad\u00a0and almost impossible to watch. Yet, I am so grateful I have them.<\/p>\n
Then there are the videos of my grandma. I want to watch those over and over again.<\/p>\n
Then there’s baby Nicky. I love, love, love these. Here’s a little window to Nicky at 4.5 months old:<\/p>\n