I have some 20+ year old BetaMovie tapes shot with a Sony BMC-550. This was a consumer beta recorder. How can I convert them to DVD?

Hi Kent and welcome to DVinfo!

Well obviously you will need a camera or tape deck which can play the tapes. If you have that, then it should be pretty simple. But your post is ambiguous; the title says you want to convert them to "DV" but in the post itself you say you want to convert to "DVD".

For DVD's, just use a standalone DVD recorder. They are cheap these days and should produce good results. Just run analog cables for the video and audio between the beta deck and DVD recorder.

Basically the same thing would work for conversion to DV. You could use any DV camera with analog A/V inputs and cable it to your beta deck/camera. Of if you want to capture on your computer you could use a DV camera with pass-through capability and connect it to your computer via firewire. If you don't have a camera that will do this, you could buy a box like this which will convert the analog video to firewire for the computer: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/462758-REG/ADS_Technologies_API_558_EFS_Pyro_A_V_Link_Bidirectional.html

Thanks for the prompt response and great info.
I should have explained myself better. I have a Canon XHA1. I edit on Final Cut Express. My wish is to download selected clips for editing on FCE and then copying to DVD for distribution. What would you suggest as the best way to reach my objective?
Thanks a bunch.
Kent

I'm not all that familiar with the XH-A1 unfortunately. Does it have some kind of A/V inputs? Can it transcode from them to firewire (usually called "passthrough)? If so then all you would need to do is connect your A1 to the old camera and capture in FCE as the original tape plays.

I'm sure there are places which would convert the footage for you if you do a little Googling. Might be expensive though...

Still not clear: do you have a machine to PLAY those tapes?

If you do, then, as suggested above, connect the analog output from that camera or deck to your Canon and connect the Canon via firewire to your computer. Capture the desired clips, edit them, and author your DVD.

Yes I do have a machine to play the tapes. Sounds to simple. Thanks so much for all of the prompt advise.

Camera pass-through to get a DV file from analog video is pretty straight forward. However, sound sync issues can arise. You must keep the DV captured files short. The longer the duration, the more likely out of sync sound. So breaks in the video file as often as scenes breaks is what is normally done.

The Canopus ADVC 100 or 110 (approx. $280) is a very highly rated A to D video converter. I have used it as well as the higher end ADVC 500 with stunning results. Both of these units have locked sound sync and do not have above mentioned issues when set to "locked" mode.

But since you are doing movies, the standalone DVD recorder seems least cumbersome.