How can I convert a video that's on a camcorder cassette tape to a dvd?

Question

When my son was a newborn, about 2 years ago, I had a camcorder. I recorded a bunch of stuff up until my camcorder broke. I got rid of the camcorder and I still have my cassette tapes from the camcorder that i recorded on. I want to get the recordings onto a dvd so I can watch them through my dvd player, but I don't know how now since I don't have my camcorder to connect to my computer to convert the stuff on the tapes. Is there something I can buy that will read the casette and allow me to hook it up to my computer in order to do this? Or do I have to buy a camcorder? The camcorders they have now don't use the cassettes, they use dvd's.

Answer 1

well, that is unfortunate you do not have the camcorder anylonger... you can go to a pawn shop, or a thrift store, and purchase another camcorder that uses those cassettes though.  And, then, you can purchase a dvd burner that is just a burner.  Or you can rip them to the computer.  I purchased a sony dvd burner that you can connect to anything...(you can even plug in a memory card directly) very versatile.  here is the burner we got:  

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000SML...

Good luck in saving those memories!!!

Answer 2

if it was vhs-c...

you need an adapter.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/shop/4148/...

now you can either use a vcr/dvd recorder to copy straight from the cassette to a dvd

or

connect your vcr to your computer with a product like this.

http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/us...

or

if it was minidv, you can buy a cheap used camcorder to do this.

Answer 3

since you don't have the original camcorder be very careful. you could buy any old cam but it's pretty likely it'll chew the tape.

for the benefit of preserving memories get it to a pro video duplication center that'll transfer your files to pretty much any format you like including dvd. make sure you get a digital file (from source tape) on a separate disc for later.

Answer 4

you could take the cassettes to a store to get them re-done...