Need suggestions for VHS to DVD....

[mjvgiese]

I have around 20 commercial VHS tapes that I want to transfer to DVD. They are of a TV series, and it is not available on DVD(probably never will be), so I want to transfer them to DVD. I'm not sure how to go about doing this.

I have some experience with VCD's and DVD's, but no experience with VHS to DVD or capturing, so I'm hoping someone can answer a few questions for me.

I've searched the site and I get lost in all the information. I'm wanting to use a capture card to capture the VHS, and then go from there. I don't yet have a capture card, I'm going to get one this week, but I was wondering if the capture card needs to have any special features?

I've read that a Time Base Converter is needed, is there anyway to get around this? I'm on a budget and it looks like those are pretty expensive.

I've also read that many people use S-VHS VCR's, is there any reason that just a regular VHS VCR won't work?

I'd appreciate any help anyone can give me, or point me in the right direction.....
Thanks.

[Cole]

I've also read that many people use S-VHS VCR's, is there any reason that just a regular VHS VCR won't work?

A regular VCR would work but the picture quality of a S-VHS with TBC installed will make the picture cleaner (shameless plug: see my link below).

I will let someone else mention the capture cards, as I use an ADVC-50, but have a look at the Capture Cards link on the menu bar as this could give you some idea of what is out there.

[Vance]

I was/am in the same boat. I bought a Leadtek Win2000XP Expert PVR capture card and and running my VCR connected to the card and use the bundled software (Ulead VideoStudio 8 SE) to capture in DVD format. Then I just burn it. I am having some problems with the volume of the recording wanting to fluxuate pretty bad, but I'm trying to learn how to correct that.

So basically, the Leadtek does the trick for me and I don't see any reason that a regular VCR wouldn't work for you. You might want to get a good head cleaner tape and make sure the heads of the VCR are clean before capturing.

Good luck,
Vance

[housepig]

you can check out the guide I wrote for Lordsmurf's site HERE.

[Xylob the Destroyer]

ja!
www.lordsmurf.com is a wealth of information for this type of conversion

[mjvgiese]

Ok, so I guess I need to get a capture card and start experimenting. It seems there are alot of different kinds of cards, PCI, AGP, ATI, VFW, WDM, etc. Are these different types of capture cards, or ?? When I look for the card, does it need to have one of these sets of letters on it?

I'm going to head over to Fry's tomorrow and (hopefully) pick one up.

Oh, one other thing. As I said before, the VHS tapes are commerical, and I want to transfer them to DVD as they will probably never be available on DVD. Am I going to have problems with copy protection??

Thanks for all the help!

[housepig]

Ok, so I guess I need to get a capture card and start experimenting. It seems there are alot of different kinds of cards, PCI, AGP, ATI, VFW, WDM, etc. Are these different types of capture cards, or ?? When I look for the card, does it need to have one of these sets of letters on it?

PCI - type of pc card slot
AGP - type of pc card slot
ATI - manufacturer of popular cards
VFW - Video For Windows
WDM - check the glossary?

[gshelley61]

Ok, so I guess I need to get a capture card and start experimenting. It seems there are alot of different kinds of cards, PCI, AGP, ATI, VFW, WDM, etc. Are these different types of capture cards, or ?? When I look for the card, does it need to have one of these sets of letters on it?

I'm going to head over to Fry's tomorrow and (hopefully) pick one up.

Oh, one other thing. As I said before, the VHS tapes are commerical, and I want to transfer them to DVD as they will probably never be available on DVD. Am I going to have problems with copy protection??

Thanks for all the help!

You will need a copy protection defeater box (like a Sima "Copy This!")... although they don't always work 100% of the time. Only a full frame TBC will absolutely eliminate all tape copy protection signals.

BTW, why don't you just buy a DVD recorder? It is so much easier, way faster, and the results are very hard to beat. The computer method has a steep learning curve, and the results depend very much on you knowing what you are doing (read: lots of time and energy will need to be invested to get good results). For 20 VHS tapes, the DVD recorder method would be my first choice. Have a look at the Pioneer DVR-220 or JVC DR-M10.

[FulciLives]

The Avermedia DVD EZMaker PCI is a popular and cheap PCI capture card with high quality AND most importantly you can copy any source as it totally ignores copy protection. This card is a "software" only card and is best when you capture to HuffyUV using the iuVCR guide on LordSmurf's website. You can capture direct-to-MPEG with this capture card but you need a damn fast computer and better software that what is provided.

The Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250 is another PCI capture card but this one has hardware MPEG encoding which is good IF you want to capture direct-to-MPEG (this is all that it can do). Since this is a hardware MPEG encoding capture card you tend to get very good quality with little strain on the computer. Like the Avermedia DVD EZMaker PCI the WinTV PVR-250 is another capture card that totally ignores copy protection.

The ATI AIW capture cards TOTALLY recognize copy protection ... in fact sometimes tapes WITHOUT copy protection still "trigger" the copy protection and therefore no capture ... unless you use a Full Frame TBC but the cheapest such device is about $200 USD.

Stand alone DVD recorder is good but again you will need a Full Frame TBC to defeat the copy protection as with the ATI AIW cards.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
Here is a link to a website with info on the Hauppauge WinTV PVR capture cards: CLICK HERE

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[mjvgiese]

Thank you to everyone for all your informative help and suggestions!

It does seem like there is a steep learning curve to all this, and I do think I could get it, but I may end up just getting a DVD Recorder. It sounds like it's a lot less time consuming to do it that way. I think I was just kind of wanting to use this project as an excuse to get a capture card...I've wanted one for so long, but we don't have very good tv reception so I can never justify getting one. On the other hand, I've been wanting a DVD Recorder for a while too, and this would be a good excuse to get one....so I may just do that.

So if I got a DVD recorder I wouldn't need a TBC or anything like that, right? It would basically be as simple as hitting 'play' on the vcr and hitting 'record' on the DVD recorder? That would be awesome.
EDIT- I just read that I would still need a TBC, even if I did use a DVD Recorder. So it seems to me there isn't much advantage to going with the DVD recorder after all....

[gshelley61]

No, you will still have to deal with defeating the copy protection your commercial VHS tapes will surely have.

An inexpensive "copy box" (Sima and others make them) may be sufficient for the tapes you specifically have, so try that first. They don't always work on every type of copy protection, though. A full frame TBC like the AVTools AVT-8710 will completely eliminate all copy protection signals, and provides some picture enhancement adjustments, too.

I think some DVD recorders (like the ILO, for example) can be "hacked" with firmware to ignore copy protection signals and capture your VHS tapes anyway. However, the recorded DVD will still have the copy protection signal intact (TV's ignore this).

[FulciLives]

So if I got a DVD recorder I wouldn't need a TBC or anything like that, right? It would basically be as simple as hitting 'play' on the vcr and hitting 'record' on the DVD recorder? That would be awesome.

Unfortunately NOT so simple.

All stand alone DVD recorders have copy protection controls that will not allow you to copy from a source (be it VHS or DVD etc.) that is copy protected.

One way to get around this is to use a Full Frame TBC.

The cheapest one around is the AVT-8710 by TVOne aka AV Tool Box

You can buy the AVT-8710 in the USA for about $200.00 USD from the following website: CLICK HERE

If you can afford it ... both the stand alone DVD recorder and the Full Frame TBC ... your life would be fairly simple 8)

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[housepig]

You can capture direct-to-MPEG with this capture card but you need a damn fast computer and better software that what is provided.

I'll agree with better software, but "fast computer" is relative - everything in that guide was done on an Athlon XP 1700 machine (about 1.4ghz cpu).

@Fulci - I'm pleased to see you liked my guide.

[FulciLives]

You can capture direct-to-MPEG with this capture card but you need a damn fast computer and better software that what is provided.

I'll agree with better software, but "fast computer" is relative - everything in that guide was done on an Athlon XP 1700 machine (about 1.4ghz cpu).

@Fulci - I'm pleased to see you liked my guide.

Well my point is this ... you shouldn't really capture direct-to-MPEG unless you have a HARDWARE MPEG encoder such as the WinTV PVR-250 or something like the ATI AIW cards which at least use some HARDWARE to do the MPEG encoding/capture.

I did use a BT based PCI capture card last night to capture THE SIMPSONS direct-to-MPEG using PowerProducer Gold (came installed on my new 3.2Ghz computer) and it turned out OK but this was just a fast and dirty method to get it on a DVD+RW for my girlfriend who watched it once then bye bye.

I normally would use such a card to capture to HuffyUV AVI with iuVCR then convert to MPEG-2 DVD spec with AviSynth and CCE.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[mjvgiese]

The Avermedia DVD EZMaker PCI is a popular and cheap PCI capture card with high quality AND most importantly you can copy any source as it totally ignores copy protection.

This sounds pretty good, quite good actually, but I was looking at some info for it, and it doesn't look like it has a TV tuner. I'd kind of like to be able to watch/record tv with the card I get. This looks *perfect* except for that!

The Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250 is another PCI capture card but this one has hardware MPEG encoding which is good IF you want to capture direct-to-MPEG (this is all that it can do).

And it looks like this one does have a tv tuner, but I think I'd like the option of capturing to .avi files or MPEG4, since I'd probably want to do some editing.


Is there anyway to get something just like the Avermedia DVD EZMaker PCI that has a TV tuner? Or does it actually have a TV tuner and I'm just not seeing it?

[FulciLives]

Is there anyway to get something just like the Avermedia DVD EZMaker PCI that has a TV tuner? Or does it actually have a TV tuner and I'm just not seeing it?

No TV tuner but you can use a VCR as a tuner or a cable box/satellite box. In fact if you do a lot of TV recording a separate cable/satellite box is most deserible.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[MOVIEGEEK]

How old are the VHS tapes?
If before 1995 they probably don't have Macrovision.

[FulciLives]

How old are the VHS tapes?
If before 1995 they probably don't have Macrovision.

Your timeline is WAY off ... MACROVISION has been around longer than that!

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[MOVIEGEEK]

How old are the VHS tapes?
If before 1995 they probably don't have Macrovision.

Your timeline is WAY off ... MACROVISION has been around longer than that!

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

Yes but it wasn't used widespread,most of my VHS tapes before that time DON'T have Macrovision protection.

[trhouse]

I wouldn't make the assumption that your commercial tapes have Macrovision. Take one to a store that sells combo vcr/dvd recorders and see if they will accept it. Do this test on a combo because the store might get upset if they find you rewiring their demo recorders to a vcr.

I have a combo unit and use it to make copies of commercial VHS tapes from the library ( mostly "do-it-yourself" tapes). but the combo unit has copied every tape without any problem. Most recorders do have some form of TBC ( not full frame ) or frame synchronizer, plus a variety of noise reduction schemes so they are not quite as bare as a capture card alone.

With the combo you can switch back and forth between the vcr output and the recorder. I have one tape that loses vertical sync ( it rolls vertically ) and text looks a bit wavy but the recorder output only shows a mild horizontal bar travelling from top to bottom but the picture never rolls and the vertical lines in text become straight.

Capture cards give you a lot of flexibillity but there is a trade off. To make it work you have to figure out how to make all the pieces, software and hardware, work together and that is not always trivial.

[mjvgiese]

I've done some more research, and I've decided that capturing direct to MPEG 1 or 2 would be fine for me, since the only editing I'd be doing is just some cutting of commercials, etc. So, the Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250 looks absolutely great!

From what I've read, almost everyone who has the PVR-250 seems to really like it. It just seems like the smart choice for my needs.

I was kind of wanting something a little less expensive, but the PVR-250 is definetely the one I want. I went to Fry's today, but they didn't have it. So I've been looking online, and so far the best deal I've found is $127.29 at Amazon. Does anyone know of someplace that has it any cheaper?

[FulciLives]

I was kind of wanting something a little less expensive, but the PVR-250 is definetely the one I want. I went to Fry's today, but they didn't have it. So I've been looking online, and so far the best deal I've found is $127.29 at Amazon. Does anyone know of someplace that has it any cheaper?

Using PRICEGRABBER.COM the cheapest price I could find was $120.56 which came to $128.13 for me with shipping but of course I assume the shipping price can vary based on your address.

MPEG-VCR by Womble Multimedia is the best MPEG editor.

I also suggest you get TMPGEnc DVD Author since it is easy-to-use plus it will encode the MP2 audio (the format the WinTV PVR-250 uses) into AC-3 format ... IF you get the AC-3 plug-in for TMPGEnc DVD Author.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman