I've made the switch to digital. Many beautiful color slides, most labeled with scientific name or other descriptor. Mostly USDA 4-6 stuff, also some general horticulture and botanical garden slides.

I am from the era that took only 35mm slides. This would have been from about 1960 to 1980. I too have boxes and boxes of slides. I considered getting a scanner that would convert the slides to jpgs, but I found out that Wal-Mart would do the job a lot cheaper than what a new scanner would cost me. I took them a box of them and they scanned them and put them on a CD for me. One thing, most had to be rotated or flipped. They just scanned then without paying any attention to how they would come out. However, that was easy for me to straighten out. I think they did a couple of hundred slides and the cost was less than $5.00.

I have the Epson V200 and it does a superb job of scanning slides - I can scan 4 at once, it automatically saves them as an individual file. Do you want the DVD to store the digital files, or are you looking to make a viewable DVD slideshow? I use Windows Movie maker to make my slide shows, but (on XP anyway) it does not burn directly to DVD. I create the project with Movie Maker, then burn it to DVD using Roxio burning software. You can add music, transitions, narration, etc., easily with Movie Maker. Any computer with Windows XP has it. I prefer it over any other slide show maker. If this is what you are looking to do, I can give you more specific instructions.

First off let me say that I prefer Mini DV camcorders to the direct to DVD type. If you plan on editing you video then a Mini-dv will end up giving you a better quality result because it will stay uncompressed until you are done and ready to author the DVD. In the DVD camcorders you get MPEG compressed video on the disc so any editing will uncompress and then recompress resulting in lower quality. To answer your questions: 1. The mini dvd's are either DVD-R or DVD+R discs these differ not in the content on the disc from normal DVD's but in the actual disc itself. The recordable disc's both mini and full size use a color changing dye to record the bits of data while a normal dvd is a pressed layer. Most newer DVD players and DVD-ROM drives in PC's will read either format with no problems. However you can go to Video Help.com and look up your DVD Players, others have put in feedback about what type's of disc your player works with. 2. The CCD is the electronic device that actually converts the incoming light signal to the electronic format, the number value attached is typically a resolution number, the higher the resolution (pixel count) of the CCD the higher quality the captured visual information can look. There are higher end models that employ three CCD's to give an even higher resolution image. 3. Both digital camcorders (a sony and a panasonic) I have owned had this feature, its name varies by manufacuterer. 4. Nope no adapter is typically required. If you look closely at the tray there is normally an indention to hold the smaller disc's, this has been a standard back to the mini CD. 5. Sound sync issue you experienced is likely due to the way you captured the video/audio. You dont say much about it so I can only speculate. In any case the MiniDV and the DVD camcorders should not have this issue is setup properly. You can also go the videohelp website for tips on how to capture analog video and convert if you are still interested in that for you old tapes. 6. Dont know check the manufacturers specs for their camera. Are you certain that the Panasonic was mini VHC (VHS-C)?? If its miniDV then I think you need to reconsider a new camera and look at how you edited and converted the video to DVD, it should not have the problems you described. Here is an excellent camcorder buying guide at Cnet.com