VHS To DVD with Best Quality & Compatibility

[Tyler2000]

I have a home video I need to convert to dvd. I have a stereo vcr, a camcorder with analog pass-thu converter, and a firewire connection to a PC.

I need to know what freeware tools I should use for the best quality picture and the most compatibility with dvd players. I have pinnacle studio 9, but I have found out it was causing some of the compatibility issues I was having, so I want to avoid using it for this dvd. I also have Roxio Easy CD Creator which I have used for dvds. I don't think Roxio was causing any compatibility problems, but it may have been. The best compatible dvd I've made so far was when I used Dvdshrink.

The dvd I want to make does not need menus or chapters, and the only edits I want to make are for improving the quality if necessary. The vhs tape is probably less than 2 hours long.

[lordsmurf]

Stereo VCR, check.
DV pass-though, check.
Firewire card on PC, check.

Roxio sucks. Pinnacle 9 sucks. Avoid.

Assuming you only want to use existing equipment.

Plug VCR into DV cam.
Use WinDV software to transfer.
TMPGEnc Plus to encode, filter video.
TDA to author and burn.

Womble can be used to edit footage:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/dvdguides/edit/editmpeg/removecommercials.htm

But for free, TMPG can do it too. Just harder.
So can TDA, but check carefully for sync problems, can happen.

Done.

TMPG and TDA are cheap software, well under $100 total for both.

[Tyler2000]

Another question I forgot to ask is that my vcr does not have s-video output, but I have a signal converter that converts RCA to S-Video. Would the quality improve if I connect the rca cables from the vcr to the signal converter then to the s-video on the camcorder? Or does the quality improvement of S-video only work when you connect s-video to s-video.

I don't want to buy any addtional software. Why do you think Roxio and Pinnacle 9 suck?

[lordsmurf]

No, the quality will not improve.

Roxio is not always to spec and re-encodes too much.
Pinncle is buggy and crashes too much. other flaws too.

Feel free to limp along, but you'd be better off with better software.