I am looking for some guidance on what to do with my VHS tape collection...

[aglie]

Hi everyone,
I am looking for some guidance on what to do with my VHS tape collection... I have about 100 tapes that contain several hundred rare movies that I recorded off of tv back in the 90s. I also have about a dozen tapes of home movies. I want/need to move this material to a digital format. I have been doing my research but I can't seem to determine which is the best route to take. I was hoping to get some definitive advice to help me move ahead with this project.

Details:
The VHS Tapes
- Many of the tapes contain 2 or 3 movies (so they were recorded at the lowest quality to begin with). I am not too concerned about picture quality then but I do want to get the best digital copy that I can.
- Many, at least half, of the tapes contain movies with commercials, and I would love to edit these out. (I teach film classes and I want to be able to screen these films in my classes and not have to deal with the commercials)
- I would like to be able to, though do not absolutely need to, group and rearrange this rare movie collection as I am moving it to disc (ie. put several short documentaries together on one disc whereas right now they are scattered over different VHS tapes, etc.)

My equipment
-I just bought a new Toshiba laptop that is running Windows 7 64bit and has DVD Movie Factory on it. I don't have a USB capture device yet but have been looking at them.
-I also have an old desktop that I am not currently using that has an ATI video capture card and Studio 9.
-I don't currently have a DVD Recorder but have been looking at them since this would be another option.

My situation
-Finally, I honestly don't have a whole lot of time in my life to devote to this project, and so practicality is a major factor here as well. The tech geek part of me wants to do this 'the right way' and put a lot of effort into creating a really nice digital archive, but the rest of me suspects that I will never find the time to actually do it. Meanwhile, as I try to decide, the tapes sit there collecting dust, deteriorating, and annoying my partner because of the space they are taking up. I've promised her I will make a decision and take some action ASAP.

Can someone help? Based on what I have said above, which route should I take? Should I buy a combo VHS-DVD recorder and just start dumping this stuff? Should I use my old computer? Should I use my laptop? Weighing time vs quality, what do I do? (A final question I had was: If I dump my tapes directly from VHS to a DVD recorder, can I put the DVD into my computer later on when I have time and edit the commercials out of the films then?)

Thanks for reading this and for any help you can give me.

[MOVIEGEEK]

Using a DVD recorder is the easiest way to transfer, you can edit the DVD's later on your PC.
Tip: Make sure you record in Video mode and finalize.

[redwudz]

The easy way is probably to use a DVD recorder. Then you will end up with DVD discs that you can load into one of your PCs and edit as needed, then produce a edited DVD. The VHS tapes recorded at lower speeds may not come out too well. Depends on the capabilities of your VHS deck.

Alternately, you could use your ATI capture card in the one PC, but that will require probably a bit more tweaking and work.

Or you could use a USB device and convert to some format. Or a DV converter. That would make for easier editing and filtering. But more work and more hard drive space required.

And aglie, in the future please use a more descriptive subject title in your posts to allow others to search for similar topics. I will change yours this time. From our rules:

Try to choose a subject that describes your topic.
Please do not use topic subjects like Help me!!! or Problems.

Thanks,

Moderator redwudz

And welcome to our forums.

[jjeff]

I would suggest the Magnavox 2160a, only available new from Wal Mart online or occasionally from J&R out of NY as a refurb.
New is ~$227 and refurb I believe ~$160.
The beauty of the 2160a is it's HDD. You'd play your VHS tapes on a player(The Maggy isn't a combo, it's only a DVD recorder(basically all new combos really suck and I would never suggest one)) and record to the maggys HDD, either the whole tape or bits. Once on the HDD you can break the chunk up, delete commercials etc. and finally burn at high speed and lossless to a DVD.
Unless you've got lots of time to learn and tinker with a computer and program I'd say you can get darn near as good results and it would be much easier to do everything on the Maggy. If you don't have a good VCR you could check used outlets such as pawn shops, goodwill etc. They are basically giving away decent VCRs but you can't really buy one new anymore.

[lordsmurf]

I suggest getting a DVD recorder that will filter quality, making the DVDs look better than the tapes did.
Many DVD recorders will make the DVDs look worse than the tapes.
Not all DVD recorders are equal! http://www.digitalfaq.com/reviews/dvd-recorders.htm

[Constant Gardener]

I found that some of my "rare" movies were easily available on DVD. Most of them were much better than my videotapes.

[aglie]

Thanks for all the great advice everyone! This has been an enormous help. I will do some more research on DVD recorders and choose the right one and go in that direction for now.

Cheers,
S

[aglie]

I found that some of my "rare" movies were easily available on DVD. Most of them were much better than my videotapes.

Thanks for the "advice", but I assumed people on here were intelligent enough about movies to understand that rare implies that the film is not available on DVD.

[hech54]

I honestly don't have a whole lot of time in my life to devote to this project.

Not to be a smartass but....a 6 hour tape takes.....well....6 hours to record any way you look at it.

[LCSHG]

aglie Wrote
I am looking for some guidance on what to do with my VHS tape collection... I have about 100 tapes that contain several hundred rare movies that I recorded off of tv back in the 90
Many of the tapes contain 2 or 3 movies (so they were recorded at the lowest quality to begin with). I am not too concerned about picture quality then but I do want to get the best digital copy that I can.
- Many, at least half, of the tapes contain movies with commercials, and I would love to edit these out. (I teach film classes and I want to be able to screen these films in my classes and not have to deal with the commercials)

Can someone help?
　
AND THAN
Thanks for the "advice", but I assumed people on here were intelligent enough about movies to understand that rare implies that the film is not available on DVD.
UNQUOTE
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
alglie
Garbage In Garbage Out
You think that Old films are from the 90s and RARE
You tape VHS at its lowest quality And with commercials and want to save and edit them.
That’s not Intelligent
You do need guidance. And Help. A number of posts have tried to do that. BUT You are a Teacher in a film class and with a Laptop that has windows 7. - WOW.
You should be able to give Ted Turner and Spielberg a lessen on Films.
　
You should take
Constant Gardner Advice --- and others
For the sake of your students
You would be surprised at what’s out there

[aglie]

Seven replies to my question and sadly nearly half of them are either rude and abusive or barely concealed insults. It is disappointing that the mods here don't deal with this and encourage a more welcoming environment for newcomers. Thanks again to the 50% of you who replied in a friendly and welcoming manner. For the others, feel free to continue with your petty remarks on this thread. I am deleting my membership and won't be reading anything else here. Goodbye.

[Supreme2k]

There's no easy way to say this, but you're being a jerk and an ingrate.

You got six perfectly good suggestions. One of those suggestion you bashed because it was too simple, though those are often the winners ("My computer won't work!" "Is it turned on?" "No, oh, okay. It's working now.") You probably dismissed hech54 because you can't handle the truth, which directly addressed your problem (analog=real time). I am 100% positive that you would be surprised at what is available on DVD.
The last post was a response to your lack of grace. Even with the venom in it, it still contained advice.
Good luck to your students, considering all of the patience you've shown here.

Do let the door hit you on the way out.

[JohnnyBob]

I was in the same place as you about a year ago. I ended up throwing away about 400-500 VHS tape movies after first getting as many DVDs as possible to replace them. I only kept the ones where I couldn't find a decent DVD copy. I transferred all the remainder to DVD with a Magnavox DVD recorder. The video transfer quality was poor and I only keep them for sentimental reasons. Now I wonder who wants 100+ blank VHS tapes which I had stocked? I've been unable to sell or give them away! I'll probably have to throw them away too. VHS is dead, so might as well forget about it...

[LCSHG]

Jonny Bob
Understand the problen
You might try looking at laser disks [LD] at times you may find both a player and/or disks you want or need in a second hand store. There are LD players and LD disks on eBay.
I should throw away a lot of stuf but being apack rat I just can’t do it. Someday when I’m not around, My Wife Will.

[victoriabears]

I really dislike it when a thread in a hobby even friendly forum goes south , mood wise.

We all have different perspectives but the OP is asking the virtually impossible by saying he wants his vhs collection transferred to digital media as if by magic.

Even using a combi vhs/dvd recorder, it takes the time of the tape, 6 hours per tape apparently, and with my own 600 vhs tapes I did not end up tossing that many and that makes sense as I was careful about what I recorded in the first place, I started in 1982 with V2000 in the uk and pretty much ended when I came to Canada in 2000 as archiving anything that has so many commercials and can actually be obtained on dvd is a waste of time. I have found a lot of my vhs material on dvd, and I suspect the OP would but he has gone all cranky and will not play in our sand box.

sad.

[lordsmurf]

@victoriabears, there are several good methods for this:

• Osmosis. Just set the stack of tapes on a DVD spindle. In a few weeks, everything is transferred.
• Or set them out overnight, and the DVD fairy will magically put them on disc for you overnight, sort of like elves that make shoes or the tooth fairy!
• Around Christmas, put some milk and cookies nearby, to entice Santa to convert them for you.

Come on, you know that's how it really works!

[overloaded_ide]

Seven replies to my question and sadly nearly half of them are either rude and abusive or barely concealed insults. It is disappointing that the mods here don't deal with this and encourage a more welcoming environment for newcomers. Thanks again to the 50% of you who replied in a friendly and welcoming manner. For the others, feel free to continue with your petty remarks on this thread. I am deleting my membership and won't be reading anything else here. Goodbye.

Well that's a bit negative on your part there also. Remember 2 things, 1 the world is full of helpful people and nasty people also, maybe a 50/50 mix, and 2 just because you thought something was rude may not mean it actually was.
Many people type short and to point and a quick reply may sound insulting when it's just meant as facts.
Most people around here are nice helpful people I think.

It will take 6 hours to record 6 hours of VHS, true as you have to play it at normal viewing speed. It's not like dubbing tape to tape where sometimes you can do a higher speed. So if you have 1,000 hours of tapes figure you have to play them for 1,000 hours to capture them. The trick here to save time is use an extra system you don't need during that 1,000 hours! This means basically start the tape playing and capturing then walk away for awhile!

I understand about the rare 90's and quality issue. In early 90's we did not have DVD or Blue Ray burners so we did not expect to be burning DVDs in 2010 or such when we first recorded that old content. In the 90's we may also not think about it will be rare in 2010 also! Perhaps 20 years ago you were not a teacher or planning to use this content in any class also. No need for any rudeness here from anyone! Things change, life changes!
For better quality captures maybe if you wanted to put in the time there are a few things you could do, but it will mostly take allot of time!

For a good capture of same quality as your tapes the best and fastest way I think would be just use your system with the ATI capture card with good settings. You'll have to research the settings as I have not done my VHS captures for a few years now and forgot most of them. Lord Smurf had a list of good setting as I recall.
Set up the VCR to play the tapes and the PC to record the capture. Capture to Mp2 Half D1 48,000hz stereo audio as I recall but I could be wrong.
To record a 1 hour show will take you 1 hour. Start the capture and go do something else, come back in 55 minutes so you can turn off the VCR and Capture. Save the file.
NOW, start show 2, go away and do other things till almost done.
That is the best way to save time!

When you have saved a bunch of your shows to Mp2 in DVD specs like this then you can easily do basic editing and cropping and make some DVDs from your MP2 files.

See my next post for this.

Also, do some experimenting on your capture settings. You can use lower bit rates to put more time/volume onto a DVD. I guess a setting of maybe 5 or 6 could work well if your source is not great quality to begin with. Lower settings can lower the quality of video if you had a great quality source to begin with, but if the source is already mediocre then it should not get any worse. Simply using a high rate like 8 will not increase the quality any it will only take up more space and fill the disks faster.

[overloaded_ide]

@victoriabears, there are several good methods for this:

• Osmosis. Just set the stack of tapes on a DVD spindle. In a few weeks, everything is transferred.
• Or set them out overnight, and the DVD fairy will magically put them on disc for you overnight, sort of like elves that make shoes or the tooth fairy!
• Around Christmas, put some milk and cookies nearby, to entice Santa to convert them for you.

Come on, you know that's how it really works!

Gee, you must be the 8th Smurf today, Sarcastic Smurf. Well at least your not Grumpy Smurf.
Opps, sorry, I was thinking Dwarfs LOL

Howdy, how you been? Remember me? I am back off and on sometimes. And still thanks for all the help a few years ago!! I been away and out of video stuff for along time, just getting back into it again a little myself now.

[overloaded_ide]

Part two of the reply I started,

Once the Mp2 files have been captured and saved using the ATI capture card.

Using something simple and easy like Tempgenc DVD Author 1 or 1.5 now make a DVD!
That was the OLD program I used, but they lost MY business when they went to mandatory internet connections for verification! I REFUSE to put my work systems online for any reason! Making a DVD has nothing to do with internet access and I refuse to do it, so they tossed away MY MONEY when they ran me off!
RANT OVER

There are similar cheap or free programs now and if asked nicely maybe someone will recommend a good basic one, or buy a good program if you want.

Open the program, import/open the MP2 file you captured. There will be a edit area, window/screen/menu, you can now place a marker for IN and OUT, then choose cut area and everything will be removed in between IN OUT. Also there should be a button to click to cut anything NOT between the IN OUT and thus you only keep the part in between.
So say you have some junk at the beginning of your video you don't want. Set IN at first frame, out at the last frame before the video you want to keep then click CUT, junk removed! Now find a commercial and do the same thing, IN at beginning and OUT at end of commercial and cut! Commercial gone! Do this for everything you want removed!
Now you can set chapters if you want to jump forward or back when you watch the DVD later. You should be able to select any plce you want to add a chapter setting or probably just make chapter points at certain times like every 5 minutes if you want.
When done here, save all your work. Now Open/import the next Mp2 file you want on same DVD and do everything the same on it! Do this for as many video Mp2 files you want to add to the disk.

Remember to make your DVD the correct size for the disks you will burn to! If you are doing 2 hours or less TV shows might as well stay with simple DVD5 disks so keep the output size around 4GIGS. I like to leave a little blank space at end of disk as that's where most errors often occur.

Now if you want Menu's go make those, it varies with the programs what you can do. Anymore I often just set the DVD to play when inserted and end when done and skip menu's.

Go make the DVD files, save them to disk. You now have VOB's and whatever in a nice little VIDEO_TS folder. AUDIO_TS folder should be there and empty.

Now load up your favorite burning software and burn your disks! Make sure they work. If they don't then figure out what you did wrong.

If you did everything correct your DVD should be the same quality as your tapes were, maybe just a tiny bit better but people may argue rather any better or not.

This was a quick and simple run through for what I think is the fastest and easiest way to do what you wanted.

If you start your tapes playing and computer capturing, then forget about the time it takes because you do not have to sit there watching it run. Make sure the PC works as expected and that frames are not being lost, preferably do not use the PC for anything else during captures unless it is pretty powerful system.
Since you do not have to count the time of the capture if you go off and do other things, then I would say once you learn what you are doing and what you want to do then total work time involved with you at the PC could be as little as 10-20 minutes per basic disk
If you decide to get really fancy, your choice, then you might be at PC most the day

Something else to mention is preview your stuff and occasionally watch what is going on at times, make sure it's all working correct to begin with, then you should not have to worry about it much in the future work.

You can do a VCR to DVD recorder burn to disk, but that still takes the full time to play the VHS tape and you end up with the commercials and everything burned to the disk. Then if you edit on PC you still have that time of work, plus you have those recorder disk you don't want, unless you use RW disk and reuse them.

If you had a fancy model DVD recorder with hard drive storage and such then maybe you can edit out stuff you don't want but you still have the time to do it, I never tried that.
I never liked the couple DVD recorders I had, I actually just up and gave one away since I kept it to long to return it, the others I had tried I just returned for refund. That was log ago so maybe they got better by now??

Hope all this helps give a basic idea of how to do a fast easy simple good VHS to DVD conversion of a few 100 tapes

When I was converting most my VHS tapes to DVD I did not consider it to take very long for me because I had several computers so I just used one for the videos and while it was working I was on the other computer doing other things and not tied up with video work much.

The system I used for Video was a AMD 1700, 1 gig ram, ATI AIW AGP videocard/capturecard, maybe 160gig IDE hard drive (or less), WIN 2000, and IWILL XP333 system board, and it worked great with never a lost frame during capture.

[overloaded_ide]

Garbage In Garbage Out
You think that Old films are from the 90s and RARE
You tape VHS at its lowest quality And with commercials and want to save and edit them.
That’s not Intelligent
You do need guidance. And Help. A number of posts have tried to do that. BUT You are a Teacher in a film class and with a Laptop that has windows 7. - WOW.
You should be able to give Ted Turner and Spielberg a lessen on Films.
　
You should take
Constant Gardner Advice --- and others
For the sake of your students
You would be surprised at what’s out there

Hi,
Try to remember, or in case you weren't around at the time, the 1990's was like 10-20 years ago
Kinda depends what part of the 90's! If your a younger person like 28 maybe you weren't doing much 20 years ago with computers?
If I recall correctly we did not even have decent CD burners till 92 or later maybe even 94-96, and certainly NO DVD burners! In 1995 you would not have had any thoughts about burning a DVD on a burner that did not exist at the time either I am sure. And maybe when taped it was just something he liked for personal use that had no importance at the time near 20 years ago!

He said, " I have about 100 tapes that contain several hundred rare movies that I recorded off of tv back in the 90's"
He said there, recorded in the 90's, NOT old movies recorded recently!
WOW, does your crystal ball tell you what will be rare in 2030? I'd like to know, I'll collect it now and make a mint selling rare objects in 20 years LOL

Just joking nicely, but maybe you see what I mean here. No need to appear rude to the person, don't know if it was meant to be or not.

[classfour]

I have some movies on VHS that I recorded onto VHS in the 80's. Do I want to transfer the few recorded in SLP mode to anything? Not likely: Unless it's the last resort to watch it again.

Some of those old ones are out there in their commercial form - you only have to pay for it to get full quality (even in SP mode).

Do I have some rare VHS? Yes. That never made it to DVD in the US? Yes.

Have I found some available in PAL format? Yes, and I converted those to NTSC format - pretty much kept the quality.

Have I seen some crappy VHS to DVD transfers available "for sale"? You Betcha.

"Garbage In, Garbage Out" means alot around here.

[Kayembee]

You think that Old films are from the 90s and RARE

He said, " I have about 100 tapes that contain several hundred rare movies that I recorded off of tv back in the 90's"
He said there, recorded in the 90's, NOT old movies recorded recently!
WOW, does your crystal ball tell you what will be rare in 2030? I'd like to know, I'll collect it now and make a mint selling rare objects in 20 years LOL

Let me try to explain this in the simplest terms and ignore irrelevent detail: there is NO SUCH
THING as a "rare" movie. If all copies have not been lost it can be duplicated, and with very
few exceptions, has been. "several hundred rare movies" DON'T EXIST.

Any questions?

-Kayembee

[MOVIEGEEK]

To be fair there are many movies on VHS that haven't been transferred to DVD...and probably never will. There are two ways to check: IMDB.com and Netflix.com.

[lordsmurf]

Let me try to explain this in the simplest terms and ignore irrelevent detail: there is NO SUCH
THING as a "rare" movie.

This simply is not correct. There are a number of other things that were only shown on TV once, and never re-run or released in any format whatsoever. In other cases, a tape of a movie was released in limited numbers, recalled after release, etc. Stories vary from movie to movie, and that's always part of the interest factor in those movies!

Try these:
- Robotech the Movie, the Untold Story PAL VHS retail release, limited Netherlands release for rental market only, 1986
- Fantastic Four, 1994 Roger Corman flick, newspaper reviewer tape from the studio
- Star Wars Holiday Special, SP mode original recording in mint condition
- Generation X* (X-MEN movie) PAL VHS retail release, limited UK release 1996
I'm not talking about some crap bootleg nth generation junk either, not copies of copies. NO!

*Right now there's a Gen X tape available for 30 quid starting bid at eBay UK, but that's a rare find indeed, and it will likely fetch much more. The last time I saw this on eBay was about 10 years ago!!!

Howdy, how you been? Remember me? I am back off and on sometimes. And still thanks for all the help a few years ago!! I been away and out of video stuff for along time, just getting back into it again a little myself now.

Yep!

[handyguy]

Do your videos even display right? Try playing some & see if they play.

You can get a dvd recorder that can copy to dual layer disks at the push of a button.

[usually_quiet]

Isn't it time to move on and give help to those who want or need it more? The OP says he/she is never coming back to this website, and there is no evidence that decision has been reconsidered. I know there is a good chance he/she may still be lurking about, but I am happy to take people at their word under these kinds of circumstances.

[JohnnyBob]

Isn't it time to move on and give help to those who want or need it more?....

Yes, but with the likes of supreme, hech, and smurf camped out here and stirring up trouble in every thread on these forums, there's little chance of civility or true help.

[LCSHG]

JohnnyBob
I believe you wrong. I have read many of the posts by those you mention and would disagree with a number but all were given as an opinion and I could [Take the Time] and look for info on the issue
All the prior posts by the 3 you mention were trying to help
I past on some info to you that I thought might help
Aglie -- Started the Civil issue by not being Civil with this Post
“Thanks for the "advice", but I assumed people on here were intelligent enough about movies to understand that rare implies that the film is not available on DVD“.

I have worked in schools and taught in them and I’m 80 now . I am Very, Very sick and tired of hearing the likes of aglie question anyone’s intelligence. While asking for guidance and help on a subject he teaches but says he doesn’t have time to devote to
He can either come back or not.


Ps
Your post would seem begative
It might very well be my 1st post that was not Civil. -- I Do Hope So

[VegasBud]

Isn't it time to move on and give help to those who want or need it more?

It's almost a certainty that someone, at some point in the future, will find this thread through a search, and will come here to see if it contains information which is useful for their purposes. The OP may have left, but knowledge is recycled (at VideoHelp) for consumption by future visitors. It doesn't seem right to deprive those people of needed information, just because the OP lost interest.

Besides...as far as I can tell, posters are a little like cattle, in that they just kind of roam around, not doing much, until they find a clump of grass that looks delicious (or a thread that interests them). I'm not sure it's even possible to get cows to only eat (or posters to only post) where you want them to.