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  1. Member
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    Mar 2010
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    I'm new, I've searched the web plus some stickies here and can't quite get the info I need, likely because of the restrictions I'm facing. So here's my issue.

    I need to get some old VHS tapes (about 10 of them) onto my hard drive to be able to edit them, then to use ConvertX2DVD to author them. However, as I don't have a system/equipment to transfer the VHS tapes to my HDD I'm getting outside help. This person will have to transfer the VHS to his HDD and burn them to DVD-5 and give me the DVDs so that I can then copy to my HDD for editing and finally authoring. At present I do not know what equipment he will use to transfer from VHS to his computer, but it's from a tech school so should be good.

    The editing I will be doing will be quite basic, just cutting out commercials, etc, and will be done with VirtualDub and the result saved with Direct Stream Copy options checked (unless people here recommend something different).

    My problem is this. I obviously want the original save from VHS to computer/DVD to be the best quality possible, particularly as it's going to have to be re-converted again when authored. However, as I understand it, the best quality to save the original VHS to computer transfer will create file sizes for a standard 2 hour VHS way to large to fit on a DVD-5 (which can only hold about 4300mb).

    So my question is this: In what video format should this person save the original VHS to computer transfers so that each tape will fit on a DVD-5 and still give me the best quality that can be expected given the size limitation?

    And while I'm here, assuming this person will be connecting the VHS output directly to his computer, is there any particular software that will make it easier to ensure that the saved data is in the recommended format at the best quality that won't overflow a DVD-5?

    I've read lots of stuff about saving as mpeg2, uncompressed avi, etc., but couldn't find one thing that was specific about what file sizes to expect from the various formats for various runtiimes, so I thought I'd be very specific about what I'm trying to achieve and what I need to know. And I've seen some posts that say that saving the original VHS to computer transfer as mpeg2 will magnify artifacts. Basically, the more I read the more confused I get.

    Any help is much appreciated.

    Regards,

    JoeCB
    Last edited by JoeCB; 10th Mar 2010 at 12:55.
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  2. Member classfour's Avatar
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    Most here will tell you to capture as an .avi file onto a hard drive - mpg2 will have artifacts. I capture in mpg2 because VHS is normally not at a great resolution anyway, and it's somewhat hard to notice the difference.

    For future editing, the capture to hard drive idea makes sense - you can find similar advise in the restoration forums.
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  3. Member
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    Originally Posted by classfour View Post
    Most here will tell you to capture as an .avi file onto a hard drive - mpg2 will have artifacts. I capture in mpg2 because VHS is normally not at a great resolution anyway, and it's somewhat hard to notice the difference.

    For future editing, the capture to hard drive idea makes sense - you can find similar advise in the restoration forums.
    Thanks for the reply. I am assuming that you mean saving it in a compressed format using a divx or similar codec. But how? What software to capture, and what codec to ensure the least compression (to maintain the best quality) that will still fit on a DVD-5? As I understand .avi, it's a container that can contain almost anything.

    Regards,

    JoeB
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