Capturing PAL VHS and DVDs to NTSC DVD

[joelkranz]

We have numerous PAL VHS tapes and DVDs that we would like to preserve on standard NTSC DVDs. I have tried very hard to rip the PAL DVDs and convert them properly but this process is very complex, particularly for a non-professional.

Question is: I have a multisystem VHS player and a multisystem DVD player that play the PAL media perfectly on NTSC televisions (so obviously a PAL-to-NTSC conversion is happening on the fly). Shouldn't I be able to capture these streams of converted video/audio to MPEG2 (or other compressed) format and then author a regular DVD?

If the answer is yes, what are the hardware/software pieces that I need? For example, is all I really need a USB video capture device that will convert an analog video signal to MPEG2 on the fly (i.e., for the DVDs, plug the S-Video out on the multisystem DVD player into the video capture device)? Many thanks!

[hech54]

Question is: I have a multisystem VHS player and a multisystem DVD player that play the PAL media perfectly on NTSC televisions (so obviously a PAL-to-NTSC conversion is happening on the fly).

Unless you paid somewhere between $300 and $500 for that VCR....it is not a true "converting" VCR...it is only a multisystem one and it is not outputting a true NTSC signal.....it is outputting a quasi signal which is almost impossible to "record". Some computer capture cards can handle quasi signals but even those are few and far between.
This is a true converting VCR:
http://www.bombayelectronics.com/vcr/mx100.html