I’m not even ready for the 101 course, yet. My sister Anne asked me if
there was any way I could make a DVD of one of her videos for her. I
don’t (yet) have a DVD recorder, but I offered to try to do the
equivalent with a Video CD (VCD) or Super VideoCD. My ThinkPad has a
firewire cable, and it only took a few weeks to find one with the right
connectors for that and the video camera. Windows XP cheerfully
volunteers to record off the camera, but I thought I’d try the MGI
VideoWave 4 that came bundled with the laptop. First try shows promise
– a 4.9 gigabyte AVI file. Need to clean another 10 gig off my laptop
and defrag it to ensure I have room to capture the whole thing – there
was another 10 minutes to go when I stopped it. After that, I’ll try
Dr. DivX or Nero to see what I can produce. A first attempt with Nero
to create an SVCD resulted in a CD that sounded like an aircraft taking
off in the laptop and a really jittery picture, and nothing from the
DVD player but a “Check disc” message. Don’t know if it was bad media
or not the right format, or perhaps there are other options I need to
select. Will have to try again later.