Hi I was hoping to archive family home dvds to an external hard drive & wondering on the best way forward.

Up to now I’ve used corel VIDEO studio 2010, which also at the same time saved the dvds to WMP files. For whatever reason my corel program got corrupted & deleted all the files saved to corel.

I still have the footage on my pc in Windows Media Player but its broken up into multiple short clips of a few seconds each which does not make much of a viewing experience.

My questions:-

1.If I wanted to stay with corel & reload everything back onto it from mini dvd, would I need to also install the corel software onto my external hard drive to view it there?

2. I would prefer to move everything into WMP as its more versatile, but how can I CONDENSE all these wmp files that originally came from 5 dvd mini DISKS into 5 watchable long clips like the original mini disks they came from?

3. Can you recommend a software program that can convert from CAMCORDER mini disc to wmp without breaking it up into small bits?
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1.If I wanted to stay with corel & reload everything back onto it from mini dvd, would I need to also install the corel software onto my external hard drive to view it there? ( NO - The software just needs to be installed to Windows and no matter where the media is located it can handle it. )

2. I would prefer to move everything into WMP as its more versatile, but how can I condense all these wmp files that originally came from 5 dvd mini disks into 5 watchable long clips like the original mini disks they came from? ( See answer to #3, Format Factory might work and its available for free download. )

3. Can you recommend a software program that can convert from camcorder mini disc to wmp without breaking it up into small bits? ( I use Format Factory for CONVERSIONS which is free and worth a try, but not sure if it will handle those files or not. I create AVI's with Format Factory. )