How do I convert 3/4" tapes to DVD?

[MrsRogoish]

I work for a retired pastor. He and his wife want me to find out how to convert the 3/4" tapes a local TV station used in the 80's to air his sermons to a DVD (and from there we would like to save them to our external hard drive). There are a ton of tape. They have 2 working Sony U-matic VO-5800 players. What other equipment do I need and how is it done?

[JVRaines]

You may have better luck posting this question to the Capturing forum.

In general, you will need a device to convert analog audio and video signals to digital format, a computer to accept the data and store it, software to master it in DVD-Video standard, and a device to burn it to disc. Some products will do the conversion and DVD mastering in one step. I would avoid them if you don't specifically need DVDs, however, as they can lower the quality of the result.

[Cornucopia]

Needed:
1. U-matic players (make sure heads are cleaned correctly!)
2. (when necessary) TBC (time-base corrector)
3. PC with analog capture card/box (and DVD burner)
4. (optional) adapters
5. cables

The 5800 has BNC composite video out and RCA (consumer) line level audio out. You'll need a BNC->RCA adapter, but then you'll find plenty of capture cards that will take RCA composite video + RCA consumer line audio.

Examples:
Higher end - Blackmagic Intensity/Shuttle cards
Med/Low end - Hauppauge USB Live 2 digitizer adapter
Low! end - EZ Cap (and copycats)

Capture either using a cap module of an NLE (like AVID MC, Premiere, Vegas, Edius, VideoStudioPro, PowerDirector, Magix,...), or with Virtualdub, AVIDemux, etc., or using the manufacturer-supplied capping app. Make sure you cap and save to a high quality master (usually Uncompressed, Losslessly-compressed, or a Visually-lossless Lossy Mezzanine codec). Cap audio along with it to Uncompressed LPCM (aka WAV), usually at 48kHz, stereo 16bit (24bit is better if you intend to do processing first). Edit & process/filter/noise-reduce and save to HiQual master clips. Then, convert to MPEG2 video for the DVD (could use HCEnc, TMPGEnc, etc) and AC-3 audio (Surcode, EncWAVtoAC3, Aften, BeSweet,...). Author your DVD & burn. Then go back to those master clips and encode to AVC/AAC-in-MP4 for use on HDD/consumer portable playback (using Handbrake, MeGUI, Hybrid, XMediaRecode, etc.)

Scott

[redwudz]

I might add that you will need a LOT of hard drive space, so I would figure on a couple of 1TB or larger hard drives, preferably internal to the capture PC.

And don't be afraid to ask more questions.

And welcome to our forums.

[MrsRogoish]

Thank you all so much! I know they could take this to be done somewhere but I'm their employee and this will probably take a lot of time. I'd rather work for that time! haha. I appreciate your help. I'm sure I'll have other questions.

[jagabo]

A DVD recorder will be much easier and will get you 95 percent of the quality (if you stick with 1 hour per DVD) of a complex setup and procedure like Cornucopia suggested.

[Cornucopia]

I'd say more like 75%, and much depends on whether you intend to edit and/or process.

Scott

[jagabo]

Well, I was assuming he wasn't interested in filtering and any editing would be lossless cut/paste.

[Cornucopia]

Then I would agree a dvd recorder is a better bet.

Scott