Converting Old VHS Tapes
Thanks to both Justin S and Chris for lending me a VCR and digital camera, respectively.
I was looking to get some screenshots from my days in show choir, and resorted to trying to pull images off an old VHS cassette tape I had. All this, of course, for my upcoming Pecha Kucha talk.
To get the video in to my Mac, I had to go from the VCR to a camera to the Mac. I ended up just using iMovie to pull in everything, and just let it run for an hour or two.
I had done something similar back in 2006, when I converted a bunch of old commercials I was in: me in a Linkits toy commercial, and my family in a commercial for Stir Fry.
Suffice it to say, I now have two hours of a performance that dates back to 1992, when I was in the Counterpoints show choir at North Central High School. I’ve now got so much gold digitized, it’s hard to know where to even start.
After the dust settles from my PK talk, I have plans to upload the whole thing (slowly, song by song) to YouTube. And of course, I’ll be posting up some particularly fun videos that feature yours truly here on the blog. There is some highly embarassing stuff, so stay tuned.
Here’s a teaser: one of our main songs was a rendition of Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now,” which we redid as “Don’t Stop Us Now.” Dancing, Jazz Hands, and the whole bit. Watching scenes from this performance was both awesome and embarassing and humbling, all rolled in to one. I’ll be sure to post more stuff in the coming weeks.
PS: For the extremely observant, you’ll notice that on my monitor there’s no show choir to be found. It in fact is a still from some kind of popcorn training video. Oh yes.
i can’t wait to see all this stuff again!
ben (May 26, 2009 at 11:53 am)