Check them now and again, Andie. The last "secret" project my father did back in the family room was transferring those same types of slides onto VCR tapes, with music and narratives. He told me he was going to do it, but I didn't know he had. The reason was that slide film is a gelatin base and he said that if exposed to humidity, they'll eventually get mold on them and that can't be repaired. Years later, to entertain my mother, I went in to his VCR stash and found some labeled family pictures. I thought they were the old movies he'd transposed, but they weren't. It was the slide shows. Four VCR tapes worth. I nearly broke down, as he never told us, even on his deathbed he'd finished it and he left them there for us to find down the road. It was as if he came back from the other side and ws sitting in the room with us as we watched them. I got to the third tape and had to stop to recuperate. It was so emotional. I haven't seen it yet, and now need to go through that whole library of tapes to find it again. There were some slides he transferred already with their quality highly compromised from mold. He got to them just in the nick of time. I suppose he knew if he didn't do it, they'd never get done. Now, with VCR media about antiquated, I need to get my son to transfer them over to DVDs so I can send a set to all my family. If one wants to keep family heirloom pictures into the future, the best way to do it is to make sure they are spread around in the form of copies all across a family. All's it takes is one generation who don't care, and they are lost to the descendants forever.

8mm Film Transfer, VHS to DVD, Cassette to CD, 35mm Slide Scanning Several of our members here asked about the procedure to convert VHS to DVD without a video card. It's pretty easy for you to do it by your self if you have the following items (without an expensive video card) and follow the instruction below: ----------------------------------- Hardware requirements: 1.Powerful PC for video capturing and edtting; 2.Firewire (I1394) port 3.Digital Camcorder with AV in/out 4.VHS player (VCR) ------------------------------------ Software requirements 1. Pinnacle Pro Plus or 2. Adobe Premier or 3. There are many other cunsumer level video editing software -------------------------------------- Step-by-step: 1. Connect your VCR to the camcorder via the A/V In/out cable, usually it has a component interface to VCR or a s_video interface, remember to turn A/V (or s_Video) in/out to "ON", in the camcorder's menu function 2. Switch the camcorder to "PLAY" mode; 3. Connect the PC with Camcorder with a Firewire cable (I1394); 4. Power on the VCR player; 5. Power on the camcorder; 6. Open the video capturing software, even the standard Windows Movie Maker can capture the footage into AVI format file. - remember to capture into AVI, it's the best for archiving and editting, NOT Mpg-2 or any other formats. 7. Play the video tape from VCR. in my next article I'll show you how to convert PAL tapes into NTSC DVDs. If you have any questions or need help, please don't hesitate to email me, If you are quote this instruction, please mention this is from CanaanMedia.com. Good luck! If you want to save your time, please use the following professional service to help you! Sam, http://www.CanaanMedia.com speng@CanaanMedia.com ------------------------- 8mm Film Transfer - Our Work is used by MSNBC CBS for TV Show Frame-by-Frame,repair,Canaan is the 1st in USA. VHS to DVD -Our Work is used by MSNBC CBS for TV Show,All type of video tapes,repair,high resolution. cassette to CD - Our Work is used by MSNBC CBS for TV Show,All type of audio tapes or reels,noise cancellation,repair. 35mm slide scanning - Our Work is used by SNBC CBS for TV Show,highest resolution,repair.

All the stuff can go on the "cloud" these days. Off site storage. Webshots is changing its whole concept, American Greetings sold it back to a couple of the former owners, and now it will be all up on the Cloud, and upload there from your cell phone, your computer, maybe your camera but I don't know yet. Not for public viewing, just for folks you give access. And not in albums, have not figured out how to keep thousands of photos organized. So I will wait and see before I opt in to the new service. Meanwhile, Amazon has cloud, ASUS has cloud, and perhaps you can do a backup to a cloud. Sort of like space debris floating around out there, huh..... Sorry about your burglary. When I went north for a couple of months last year, my pet babysitter and yard dude parked his extra car here, came to watch TV, played with the animals, did the lawn, etc, changed the lights, left on music or TV late hours. So it seemed someone was home. He is a real friend! Love having a botanist for a yard dude, even if it is only till he finds work again. Note: I also never reveal my schedule of coming and going to any neighbor. So far, so good. When I worked offshore and was gone 6 or more months at a time, I used more strategies than that. That is why I named my place on the bayou MoccasinLanding. I also hung huge snake carcass mounted on a board to the tree by my little dock, with the sign, MOCCASINLANDING....PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE SNAKES. The grass got a bit high back there, and nobody ventured into my property. Moccasins are very aggressive snakes. I recognized the subject line as the Christmas carol. It almost "sings itself." Do you hear what I hear.....> Yeah, Theresa posts using Les' username. I think that is where Les chose to name Theresa's Angel Garden. I'm into names, so I notice those things. :) A little off this topic, but about hosta: I got my very last hosta order today, from WadeGatton. 21 plants from them. I also need to list the order I received from Hallson, and of course from Don Rawson, to wind up the season with a flourish worthy of Arthur Fiedler conducting the 1812 Overture. .....However, my little maltese boy kept me up all night last night throwing up, had to take him to the vet, and he is still very weak and cannot stand up. He is in my lap at this moment, muzzle resting on the crook of my arm. Little ole man is almost 13 and he is precious. So indeed I cannot set him down simply to type on the computer. Hope tonight is quiet and not a repeat of last night. See you guys on the morrow.

Mommabird, there are companies that will convert Super 8 to DVD. I know, because my dad was a Super 8 filming fiend. We've had some of those old films converted to DVD, but not all of them. We've edited what we want to keep and what can be lost to time. Another factor you have to consider is that film eventually degrades. At some point, the film will crack and break in the projector. So I did a bit of searching on the internet and found that you can convert Super 8 to digital on your own. I've posted a link below that has a list of things you might need to do the job. And here's a link to a video that describes the process: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bKRCD-06-M Again, I haven't used these products or this procedure, so I urge you to research them before trying anything. If you don't have a projector or video camera, it might cost as much to get them as to transfer the film to digital. Here is a link that might be useful: list of supplies for conversion