How to Copy a Video Disk From a Camera to CD
- 1). Insert the camera media into the computer.If this is a DVD, put it in the DVD reader. If it is a memory card, you will likely need to put it in a memory card reader that connects to the computer via USB or Firewire.
- 2). Open the media folder on the desktop. You can achieve this by going to "My Computer" and double-clicking on the icon representing the DVD or memory card. A window will then display all of the files residing on the media.
- 3). Drag the video media to a folder on the desktop. Usually, the media will be in an .MPG or .VOB format. The computer will then take several minutes to copy the video to the hard drive.
- 4). Launch the video editing program. While the highest quality programs include Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere, most operating systems come equipped with a basic, free video editing platform such as Windows Movie Maker or iMovie. These basic programs should suffice for this task.
- 5). Convert the video to an appropriate format using a file converter. Neither Windows Movie Maker or iMovie recognize VOB format, with the former working with MPEG, AVI and a few other file types, and the latter working only with MOV. There are many online converters available, such as Zamzar or MediaConverter.org (see links in Resources), as well as software programs like AVS Video Converter 6.4 (see links in Resources). All of these programs allow free trial use.
- 6). Select "Import" from the "File" menu of the video editing program and use the browser to bring in the video you want to write to disk. This will import the video into the program's video library.
- 7). Drag the video from the video library into the timeline.
- 8). Edit the video if you want to delete some unnecessary footage.
- 9). Highlight the video that you want to export using the cursor.
- 10
Select "Export" from the file menu in iMovie, or "Finish Movie" on the right side of the screen in Windows Movie Maker. - 11
Select the "Save to CD" option. This setting will compress the video and automatically export it to a CD. - 12
Insert a blank CD when the prompt appears. After you have done this, the program will begin writing the video to CD.
