Considering dumping my DVD recorder ... would it be worth it?

[Batchman]

I've been using a DVD recorder to convert my old VHS footage to DVDs, but find it is becoming nigh on impossible to copy the DVDs except in the recorder, itself, which is a slow way to do things. Am considering dumping the recorder and trying to capture things straight through my computer, but wondering if the quality would likely be worse, better, or the same, and how much more involved things might be.

First issue, I am working with a two year old notebook, so I would need a USB capture solution that would not be super-heavy on resources.

Secondly, I do not have a lot of money, so I would have to be dealing with an inexpensive device and free software.

How likely am I to be able to easily and cheaply do as good as or better than my 10 year old Ilo in capturing VHS videos and being able to convert them into DVDs that can be played in regular DVD players?

Are there solutions that fit with all these issues, or do I need to stick with my possibly dying DVR?

Anyone with any advice?

[hech54]

Either you are doing something wrong or the recorder is dying. recorders produce normal DVD unless they are defective. Cheap recorders sometimes spit out less than stellar examples of the DVD "authoring" process but.....you'll abandon it because it's broken.....that's it.
Laptops are generally crap. I would not capture to a brand new laptop....I hate them.


I love my Hauppauge USB Live|2 stick.....but I still wouldn't use it with a laptop.
Not the cheapest around but it does the job for me perfectly:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815116048
http://www.amazon.com/Hauppauge-610-USB-Live-Digitizer-Capture/dp/B0036VO2BI
http://www.hauppauge.com/site/webstore2/webstore_usblive2.html

[orsetto]

I've been using a DVD recorder to convert my old VHS footage to DVDs, but find it is becoming nigh on impossible to copy the DVDs except in the recorder, itself, which is a slow way to do things. Am considering dumping the recorder and trying to capture things straight through my computer, but wondering if the quality would likely be worse, better, or the same, and how much more involved things might be.

Can you elaborate on what exactly the problem is? Because the way you worded your question implies the recorder is working, you just find it to be "slow". Dubbing VHS to a PC and then converting the files to DVD will not be any less time consuming, and is often a good deal slower than a DVD recorder. The quality using a PC could be the same, worse, or better than your recorder results: a lot of factors can complicate the PC process. It depends on your VCR, source tapes, and how involved you want to get retouching them on the PC.

If your Ilo VHS section is dying, you can just attach an external VCR to the DVD input and keep going. Second hand VCRs (equivalent to the ones in combo recorders) are pretty cheap these days. If the Ilo DVD section is dying, you're out of luck, and will either need to buy a new combo recorder or switch to the PC workflow. In USA, one or two new combo recorder models are still available (a Funai for approx $170 and a Toshiba for $239- they're identical except for appearance).

Should you decide to go the PC route, the Hauppauge USB Live 2 recommended by hech54 gets stellar reviews from everyone here. How well it might work with your particular laptop is something you can't know until you try. You'll also need DVD authoring software to convert the Hauppauge files into standard DVDs, most people here use the free AVS2DVD. Be aware the PC workflow is not so simple, hands-off and idiot-proof as using a DVD recorder: if you have no interest whatever in making a library of universal PC video files, and only want standard DVDs, then buy another combo recorder. You'll save yourself a learning curve and some hassle.

[jagabo]

Am considering dumping the recorder and trying to capture things straight through my computer, but wondering if the quality would likely be worse, better

If you're willing to spend a lot of time, effort, and money you can get better results. If not, you will get worse results.

[Batchman]

I don't know quite what the issue is with the recorder ... I'm trying to figure it out, but figured I would ask about going directly to the laptop just in case. The recorder produces DVDs that play fine in a DVD player, and that VidCoder can re-encode (or whatever) for uploading to youtube just fine, but when I try to make a disc image so that I can burn more copies through the computer, it doesn't want to work. ImgBurn, for example, says 'Incompatible media installed.' I try using BurnAware or whatever bit of software windows uses to make an iso, and they will copy until about the last 200 or 400 mb, then they start throwing up hundreds of sector errors.

The problem is, I need to be able to make more copies of these on the computer, and I'm having trouble doing that using the Ilo to capture the stuff.

[hech54]

they will copy until about the last 200 or 400 mb, then they start throwing up hundreds of sector errors.

99% of the time errors like you are describing is simply crappy media(DVD blanks).

[orsetto]

they will copy until about the last 200 or 400 mb, then they start throwing up hundreds of sector errors.

99% of the time errors like you are describing is simply crappy media(DVD blanks).

(Ya beat me to it by thirty seconds .)

Yep, poor quality blanks are often the problem in the situation you describe, Batchman. Although usually you would also notice some playback issues on standalone players, and almost certainly with conversion software like VidCoder: its odd you are only having an issue duplicating these dvds. What brand and type of blank DVD are you using? Have you tried other types/brands? Have you tried duplicating the dvds in a different computer (to rule out your PC optical drive etc)? The duplication failures could be caused by anything: the Ilo making poor error-riddled burns, bad blanks, your PC drives going bad.

You'll need to narrow it down by process of elimination, first by trying ImgBurn on another computer altogether. If the dvds duplicate successfully in another PC, you'll know yours needs some type of repair. If duplication still fails, its down to the Ilo making bad burns because its drive is dying and/or it doesn't like the blanks you're using. Try some Verbatim "AZO" DVD-/+R or Taiyo Yuden (JVC) DVD-R, these are the only two left on the market known-good for consistent reliable burning in old recorders. The -/+RW stuff is mostly similar across brands, but its still worth trying a few different ones. If changing the blank brand or blank type solves the problem, thats your answer. If not, it means your Ilo recorder is dying and you need to decide whether to invest in replacing it or switch to a PC workflow. If most of your VHS has been transferred over, and you have less than a couple dozen tapes left to digitize, the Hauppauge USB Live 2 is a bargain and worth learning to use. But if you have a crapload of tapes left to digitize, say more than 40, the expense of another combo recorder may be worthwhile. The recorder can run off copies unattended, transfer to the PC and conversion to DVD requires much more personal involvement in the task. How much is your time worth?

[newpball]

Am considering dumping the recorder and trying to capture things straight through my computer, but wondering if the quality would likely be worse, better, or the same, and how much more involved things might be.

A good capture card and a computer are always better!

Those "DVD o-matics" are convenient and suitable for people who do not care about quality but if you care about quality avoide them. Often the compression is straight out horrible and you have very little control over the capturing process.

[hech54]

A good capture card and a computer are always better!

Nope. There is no guarantee of that.

[usually_quiet]

@Batchman Even if you do decide to go the PC capture route, you should probably keep your DVD recorder to test its usefulness as a pass-through device. DVD recorders frequently contain circuitry that allow them to substitute for line TBCs. Some are also able to correct tearing/flagging that can't be corrected by other means. They can't substitute for a full-frame TBC. You may find you need one of those too for some tapes.

As others said, if you want to devote enough time into the project, PC capture will often produce better results, although there is no guarantee that this will be true in every case. However you have to be willing to spend the time it takes to learn how to set up the capture device itself, use various Avisynth and Virtualdub filters to improve your captures, plus learn to encode video and possibly author to DVD. If you don't want to spend a lot of time on this project you will probably be happier continuing to use a DVD recorder for capture.

[Batchman]

The media -should- be good. Every time I buy another pack of discs I go to a web site that recommends the top brands (down to individual runs, I believe) and use their links to those runs on amazon. I am using Verbatim with AZO.

On the computer, I wondered if the DVD unit was going bad, so I grabbed an external DVD drive and hooked it up, using it to try. It did the same thing. Still could be something screwed up in the software of the computer, but -shouldn't- be the drive hardware going bad.

One part of me wonders, since the problem comes about at the end of the disc, but at different places on each disc, whether possibly whatever the Ilo does to 'finish' the disc (supposedly making it ready for standalone players), if that part may be what is screwing it up.

I would not mind spending the time to learn new things ... could possibly allow me to improve some things like color saturation, and almost any way of creating a DVD menu would almost have to be better than the cheap Ilo disc menu system, but I cannot spend much money on it, because I simply do not have much. Just from how much of these comments I do not understand, I can see there is an incredible amount to learn.

[Batchman]

OK ... managed to make a good iso image with CloneDVD ... though it said some of the stuff Ilo had burned was messed up. Hopefully since it was just making an iso image, it didn't reencode the video. Wouldn't think it would, but I've been told to beware of that on here, for quality's sake. The iso burned to a new disk, which played properly in my stand-alone DVD player ... so I can get the current project transferred over to DVD.

I am still thinking of buying the recommended capture device, and giving things a try the other way, to see if I can find ways to improve the process and quality. I am not asking anybody to walk me through everything, but anybody has a couple of specific guides to recommend on taking my first steps into this vastly more complicated word, I would appreciate it!

In the meantime, thanks for all the help and information you've already provided.

[edit]By the way, most of my recordings are in variable lighting inside a bar at Walt Disney World. Official shows are fairly well-lit, stuff done just wandering around talking to people is fairly dark. Anyone willing to take a glance at my youtube channel (DisneyBatchman) and glance at a couple of the files and give an impression if you think it is likely they could be improved a bit, or if I should be extremely pleased with the quality I am already getting (from 20-30 year old video tapes.)[/edit]

[orsetto]

There's an outside chance that even the excellent Verbatim AZO blanks are not burning properly in your ILO recorder. As these machines age, they tend to lose their grip on standard 16x "computer optimized" media. If the unit isn't too far gone, you can sometimes get better burns if you switch to old-school 8x "recorder friendly" DVD-R. If you live in USA, PM me with your mailing address and I'll send you an 8x blank to try. You want to dupe your personal dvds with imgBurn if possible: its more precise than CloneDVD, which fudges things a little. In this instance, its nice that CloneDVD is fudging the errors to let you make copies- but those errors shouldn't be there in the first place.

Dubbing VHS to a PC should be fairly straightforward with the Hauppauge USB LIve 2, which is less VHS-hostile than earlier capture devices. But you might need to monitor the process more closely, and may need to loop in some external hardware (like using a separate VCR with the ILO as a passthru signal conditioner, per usually_quiet). Once the digitized files are on your PC, converting them into a standard DVD adds another step. VideoHelp's how-to beginners guide to the popular AVStoDVD software can be found here. The biggest potential "gotcha" might be your laptop. As hech54 warned, some laptops are better than others for this task (and a desktop CPU is often preferable).

By the way, most of my recordings are in variable lighting inside a bar at Walt Disney World. Official shows are fairly well-lit, stuff done just wandering around talking to people is fairly dark. Anyone willing to take a glance at my youtube channel (DisneyBatchman) and glance at a couple of the files and give an impression if you think it is likely they could be improved a bit, or if I should be extremely pleased with the quality I am already getting (from 20-30 year old video tapes.)

youTube mangles things to a degree, so it only shows us a rough approximation. I'd say your clip "AC07 Gingermentary Scranton 012995" could definitely have its contrast improved somewhat with PC software, although there may not be much you can do about the color. Clips like "Disneyland is Your Land 5 day cast 4 substitutes" seem the typical (i.e. passably decent) result the majority of people get converting VHS to DVD. To achieve dramatically better would likely take a lot of PC reworking. In some of your clips, the source tapes appear to be second-generation dupes of the original camcorder material: this can limit the range of possible improvement (you can't enhance details that aren't there).

If your primary goal is uploading these tapes to youTube, dubbing to PC instead of using a dvd recorder has advantages. PC captured files should be simpler to upload, with minimal quality loss from the upload process, while still letting you make decent standard dvds from the same files afterward. When you dub direct to DVD with a recorder first, then upload the ripped dvds to youTube, some PQ is sacrificed from the sequential "lossy" encodings. How significant this is depends more on the source tapes than anything else, except perhaps day-to-day performance of the youTube site itself.

[Batchman]

When you all mention a pass-through, I am guessing you mean hook up VCR - Recorder - USB Live 2, with the recorder not recording, but just working whatever magic it has on the signal as it moves on through. I could do that. And understand it.

I tried using ImgBurn to make the iso images, but it refused to touch the disc. I -did- use it to burn the iso image that CloneDVD made. Oh ... and my Ilo is -just- a DVD recorder ... no VCR. That is already a separate unit.

You know, on one side of things, I am amazed at how well 20 to 30 year old video tapes are holding up, and still providing me with quite good (in most cases) images. But I'd still love to find ways to improve the quality a bit. (Why do I get this odd feeling I'll be saying that all my life)

Wonder if there is any way to try and tell the unit to use a slower burn speed? May have to check all the settings.

Maybe I'll have to consider trying a spindle of the Taiyo Yuden 8x ... but of course they turn out to be the most expensive ones listed. :