VHS to DVD

[Dagrafixman]

Hi all,

I have been making backups of my DVD collection to VCD for sometime.
I have about 500 VHS movies, that I would like to backup to VCD as well, only I do not have a clue on what I need to do it.

Someone told me I would need a TV capture card, so if anyone knows of a better brand,they know of, that would get me better results I would appreciate it. I also have heard of software that converts VHS to Mpeg, in order to create the VCD, but I searched the nternet, and could not find anything specific, so help in that area as well would be great, and also appreciated.

Kind Regards,

Jay

[andkiich]

Check the capture guides to the left. I'm partial to the Lord Smurf stuff myself. he has a website dedicated to capturing VHS/TV signals to DVD. A lot of his guides are on this site as well.

If you do not want to do anything special like menus, then it might be worth your while if you want to spend the money and get a stand alone DVD recorder.

[redwudz]

There's quite a bit of discussion on this board about this subject. My personal view is to use a hardware solution such as the ADVC-100, especially if you have a large quanity of videotapes. You should study the guides and make you own decision. Another option is to use a dedicated DVD recorder. You have less control over the finished product, but it may be the easiest solution. You still have to decide on how good of quality you want, how much time you want to spend and how much money you want to spend. Take some time to evaluate your decision and good luck.

[Dagrafixman]

Thanks for the info! I will definetly research my options, but the ADVC-100
looks exactly what I am looking for, in a capture device.

BTW, do either of you know how many VHS movies I could put on one DVD-R? I do have a DVD burner, but was not sure if it was possible to do it that way.

Thanks again,

Jay

[redwudz]

How many movies or files? It depends on how much quality you want. I am transfering VHS movies at LP speed, 3 movies per tape. Quality already sucks. I have put 3 on a DVD at 1/2 DVD specs and they look as good as the crappy original. Even quality VHS are not as good as DVD specs. Best recomendations is to do some research on this site to see what options are available. I like the ADVC-100 because it is rock solid when downloading VHS tapes. It is expensive, but if you have a lot of tapes it's a good system. The ADVC-100 does require an inexpensive Firewire card, but if you have XP, it is pretty much automatic. I use WinDV to transfer and TMPGEnc Plus and TPGEnc Author to make a DVD. Pretty cheap and very easy.

[lordsmurf]

The ATI cards are top quality for capture and fast for converting direct to DVD MPEG-2 or VCD MPEG-1.

Canopus is good too, but be aware of its limitations, as it is a DV-only device. DV is not DVD. See this thread: https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=183502

Realize that DV capture requires lengthy re-encodes to get it into MPEG format for disc-based media like VCD and DVD.

And you have DVD recorders to consider too.

[holistic]

I also have heard of software that converts VHS to Mpeg, in order to create the VCD, but I searched the nternet, and could not find anything specific

The whole internet?. Nearly everything you may need to know is here.
A good MPEG1 encoder is TMPGEnc (free for mpeg1)

BTW, do either of you know how many VHS movies I could put on one DVD-R? I do have a DVD burner, but was not sure if it was possible to do it that way.

You mentioned in first post you wanted to make VCD?! , If you have a DVD burner go the DVD route.
How many movies on a DVD? .....as many as you want.
How many, AND have it look decent.....depends on personal tastes. Personally, I find once I go past 2 hours ..... (bitrates of 4800+) the "percived quality" goes below my standard (threshold). Although I have done 2 hours 50 minutes once using TMPGEnc 2 pass vbr. It took over 48 hours to encode but the results were acceptable to my eyes.

There are many programs available to forefill your needs. Two I will recommend are TMPGEnc (mpeg encoder) and DVDLab (DVD authoring). Both are reasonably priced and well featured.
As far as a NLE (non linear editor) tough call. I use Premiere 6 but cut my teeth on (and still ocassionally use) VirtualDub.

][

[Dagrafixman]

Hi all and thanks for the quick responces. Lord Smurf, I have a Radeon ATI 9000 128MB 8X video card now, that has a yellow RCA video jack on it(besides a white DVI and reglar blue monitor jack). Is this one of the ATI cards that has VIVO on it already and I just did not know it? Let me know, and if so, could you direct me to a link that I might be able to learn how to use it.

I do see that DVD burning, is going to be way better than VCD now that it was mentioned. I had bought a few 5 packs of different media, just to see how they burned, and at what speeds. DVD+R's will go at 4x, while DVD-R,-RW+RW all burn at 2.7X on the Verbatium NEC_ND1300A(1700 firmware update) I think I will go out and get a 50 pack of the DVD+R's as they will best suit my purposes.

Thanks Again!

regards,

Jay

[dcsos]

No thats a VIDEO OUT ONLY

So I like the canopus..but look at lORD SMURF's post because unless its a secondary machine, the DV method of capture will tie up this machine for many hours of TRANSCODE needed...

Another "hands free" solution if you have a fast processor (1.5gig or more) is to use NEOPLUS
a program the makes your entire desktop computer system EMULATE a SET TOP DVD RECORDER for the length of the TAPE..
That is--- when your done capturing, your done making the DVD..

In this way you can put over an HOUR per DVD but are limited to one continuous capture event

[tomk]

Hi there,

I had could results transfering VHS->DVD with a dvc150 from dazzle (directly into mpeg format). May be cheap now because pinnacle bought dazzle.
The Moviestar software sucks but the hardware is really good.
And you donot need to convert, simply burn to dvd.

HTH
Tom

[i_am_dave]

Just a thought, but what kind of shape are your VHS tapes in? Is there tracking noise? Has the color degraded?
If so, you will really need to capture in DV mode and run it through a program like VirtualDub to clean it up before encoding.
If you capture in Mpeg and then clean it up and re-encode in Mpeg, you will lose quality.
I personally like to capture VHS using my ADVC-100, do any clean-ups with VirtualDub, then re-encode into 1/2 D1 using TMPGEnc.

I recently transferred my son's Tremors TV series collection to DVD this way(and also removed the commercials)