To keep my finished movie fast-moving and exciting, the first thing I do is to trim out the slow, boring parts from the raw footage during the [tag-tec]video editing[/tag-tec] process. But I save the nuggets of interviews I often shoot as part of the event even though these ‘interviews’ are not what you would call fast-paced. The [tag-tec]video interviews[/tag-tec] could be a kid telling the camera what she is looking forward to at the beach, or it could be someone sharing all the warm wishes he has for a new graduate, or it could be my grandmother explaining how her grandfather escaped with his art collection from China.

Ten years from now, when you watch the finished movie, the interviews are like little jewels of flashback into a time, a sentiment that has long been forgotten.

A professional TV interviewer has very sophisticated gear set up such as lighting, lavaliere microphone (that little cockroach you see perched on collars or lapels), and headsets. Myself? If you put a pause on a magic moment to set all that up, my little guy may have run away, or the graduation party may Read more

If you have experienced running out of tape, or rewinding and uploading tapes to a PC, it's easy to see the lure of a tape-less camcorder. In my How-To page Mini-DV, DVD and Hard Disk Drive (HDD) Camcorders I talked about the convenience of Hard Disk (HDD) Camcorders but fell short of recommending it because most HDD camcorders record in MPEG-2 file format which is not as high quality as .AVI for [tag]video editing[/tag] purposes.

I said, if HDD camcorders start coming out in MPEG-4 file format which is a higher quality, that would clinch it for me.

Well, the time has come. Sony's new Hard-Disk-Drive camcorder, the Sony HDR-SR1 uses the MPEG4 format. In addition, it uses CMOS technology instead of the more standard CCD so the image quality is excellent with vibrant colors and image depth.

You can record up to 7 hours of video on the hard disk. 'Uploading' video from your camcorder to your PC is as simple as plugging the camcorder to your computer's USB port and copying the files from the camcorder hard disk to your computer hard disk. To read more about the tape-less Sony HDR-SR1 camcorder, click here: Sony HDR-SR1 AVCHD 4MP 30GB High-Definition Hard Disk Drive Camcorder with 10x Optical Zoom.

Bye-bye tapes for me. I have always felt guilty about recording over used tapes after I transfer the video to my PC. Professionals warn me that recording on a used magnetic tape can cause quality hiccups. But I'm cheap and a recycler by nature. Well now, with a digital hard-disk-drive camcorder, I can record, copy the files to my PC, then record over the camcorder hard disk without guilt or fear of quality issues. Then again, the hard disk can store up to 7 hours of video, that's lots of recitals, birthday parties, sports events each time.

If I can only give you one advice for making home movies, it's this: Don't just record events, make a story. What's in a good story? An unexpected twist.

Watch this video below and you'll agree, it's not turning out the way you assumed it would …

‘Tis the time of reckoning. As doting parents not willing to let one memory slip by uncaptured, we have been videotaping every event from the first hospital oohs and aahs to the first baby steps to their first recital to their school graduations.

And now we have stacks of videotapes stuffed in the safety of our cool, dark closets. Safety? Not. Video tapes have a shelf life.

When Barbara Streisand sang: "Misty, water-colored memories, of the way we were." she might as well have been referring to the thousands of videotapes of old home movies that are stuck in people's closets, slowly fading as they wait for someone to pull them out and copy them to digital media.

Don’t wait any longer. When you transfer those water-colored memories into digital media, you get these benefits:

1. Stop the degradation. Magnetic media starts degrading as early as 3 years.
2. Digital files can be edited with video-editing software and turned into movies with nifty transitions, special effects, soundtrack, and captions.
3. Digital files can be shared with friends and family via DVD, the internet, iPod, email, etc.

So is it easy to transfer video tapes to a digital form?

Today, it is. To learn about the different options available, click here.

Whatever you do, don't do nothing. Otherwise, your tapes will end up like my parents' tape. Click Play to see my "misty, water-colored memories".