Computer recommendation for LOTS of home movies

[320sycamore]

To put it mildly, my family members are home movie addicts/fanatics. We have over 30 years of home movies for a really large family (ie; 6 kids, 16 grandkids, 7 great grandkids). For as long as I can remember, my parents have videotaped/recorded every and any event including Birthdays, Graduations, Communions, Vacations, Anniversarys, Bar-B-Ques, etc. They have 2 movie cameras and a projector, and 3 huge cabinets FULL of home movies. Most of the home movies are on VHS, but there are also alot on 8mm, and some on reels. My parents often throw "screening" parties (which are alot of fun in themselves!) where they show these home movies, and we are all now noticing how much the movies are starting to degrade. Everyone is pretty upset about it, especially since my parents are the unoffial keepers of our family history. (We have two most excellent videos of both sets of grandparents explaining the various family trees, it's really great!) Anyway, they have decided they want to put all the home movies onto VCD before they degrade any further. They also want to be able to put all future home movies onto VCD directly from their movie cameras instead of VHS or 8mm. They have talked to the rest of the family about this and everyone has agreed to pitch in financially.
Basically, what they want is a computer for home movies. So here is my question (finally!): What specs would you recommed for such a computer? I know it would have to have a CD Burner, huge hard drive, capture card, and high end processor, but which ones? And what other hardware would they need? They are willing to have it built to spec by a tech I know, or just purchase a brand name one from Best Buy or Circuit City, and they have a decent (well, I think it's decent?) budget, about $800.00 altogether from all the family members. They already have a regular computer that they use for word processing, surfing, e-mail, etc., so that's not a problem.
So I just thought I would see what you guys would recommend? I wouldn't want to recommend anything to them without checking to see what the experts here have to say. Thanks in advance, and please let me know if I forgot anything, and sorry about the length of the post.

[kitty]

$800 is a bit lite. If you go to best buy - they advertized a vpr-Matrix P4-2.0A this week for $1049 plus add service.

[320sycamore]

Thanks for the recommendation Kitty! I will go look at the Best Buy advert now. The $800 they have is strictly for the tower and/or parts necessary for a tower and doesn't include software, monitor, keyboard, blank cd's, etc. or any of the other stuff they need. I guess I was wrong about the budget tho, thanks for letting me know, I will tell them. Thanks again!

[Plant_Guy]

Hello,

I am a software developer, and need a new computer every 9 months or so b/c of all the client/server bloatware I have to run. To keep the cost down, I go to http://www.ubid.com for the desktop computer auctions. The only ones I bother with are the HP Pavillion refurbs. b/c they come from the factory in original boxes, and they look brand new at a fraction of the price. They also carry a HP 90 day factory warrantee. I bought three so far, and have had no problems. Hope this helps. BTW, your $800 budget puts you in range for a great PC with DVD and CD-RW (no monitor, though).

TomG. - aka Plant_Guy

[320sycamore]

Thank you TomG.! I will start looking on uBid today. We have a spare monitor and keyboard and mouse, etc. so they don't need to buy any of that stuff. They won't need a DVDrom in the computer because they have a standalone, but it will need a CD Burner for them to make the VCD's of the home movies.
Ok, I looked at some of the HP refurbished's on uBid. I didn't see any with Capture Cards, don't they need that? (Maybe I mis-read the descriptions?) Do they need a special type of Capture Card since they will be transferring from VHS, Reel and both cameras? Maybe they could buy the Capture Card separately? I've read thru the Capture Card section here, but I'm confused over which Capture Card would be able to capture from all their sources, VHS, Reel and both movie cameras. I will keep reading.
Thanks again, I appreciate the recommendation, and will look some more on uBid. I'm more familiar with Ebay and will look there too.

[tom28]

If you don't care about the computer and just want to transfer your video directly onto the VCD or DVD, why not just buy a stand alone (set top) recorder, like VCD recorder (Terrapin) for about $200, or SVCD recorder (Malata VDR-R1 VCD SVCD Recorder) for about $500, or DVD recorder from $600-$900.

Panasonic dvd recorder $589:
http://www.ecost.com/ecost/shop/detail.asp?dpno=963458

Since most of your video is not copy righted and you can save time encoding on the computer and burn it onto the VCD, SVCD or DVD.

Encoding into VCD, SVCD, DVD is very time consuming especially you had so many tapes. Computer is not a very good options. Encoding into DVD take a Day for one movies of 1 1/2 hours long. Encoding into SVCD take about half a Day and VCD takes about 4-6 hrs per movies on a PIII computer. If you are buying a low end computer < $800, I don't know how long it will take you to transfer the movies, Year maybe.

I suggest get a set top stand alone recorder that can do direct recording. Ask around and see which one is a good one to get.

If encoding is your hobby, then you should spend money to get a P 4 level computer, decent capture card and a 2X DVD burner to speed up your encoding and burning process. >$2000 should be your budget. Of course it is your option to go for DVD or not, else CDRW drive is cheap. I would go for the DVD burner $300-$400.

Of course there are capture devices that can capture directly into VCD, SVCD or DVD format to save you time of encoding....but most device would give you headache especially for newie like audio out of sync, problem with installation,etc. Those are ADS instant DVD $175, Dazzle VCII, $249, etc etc.

[TheInformer]

I agree with tom28 - if you have lots of VHS tapes to convert, buying a DVD recorder is the cheapest route to go.

The negative is that you don't have any control over the process other than to hit "record".

The positives include the price ($589!) and the time saved from not having to go through the encoding process.

If you just want to directly copy over the content, then the DVD recorder sounds like the way. If, however, you want the ability to add titles or filter the content (to remove noise, sharpen it, etc) for example, then it is not the way to go. Unless the video needed heavy filtering, I'd probably go with the recorder if I was in your shoes.

Just my two cents....

[macleod]

Hi. New the the forum and got into the VCD thing due to the same thing that you are trying to do( save old VHS home movies to a digital format).

When I began trying to do this, I didn't know about the site (this site is INVALUABLE to making VCD's. Can't live without it) so a lot of what I did was on dumb luck. Anyway, I am a cheapskate and bought a 1.2 gig emachine, on board video card, vanilla product for about $500 and then purchased the ATI-PCI card for about $60.00. I've burned my home movies to VCD format and play them on my computer DVD player (still trying to convince the wife that SHE needs a stand alone DVD player).

To make the post real long, my home movies went through a flood (of '93 in MO) and I pulled them out about 10 inches of Mississippi mud. Needless to say these already 10+ year old videos took a beating. Anyways, I hooked my vcr (4 head) up to the card and pulled them in at around 3000 bits, full motion control, etc. using the software and cable that came with the cheap ATI. Then I burned it to VCD using nero 5.5x. The video and audio it produced was flawless (even full screen which has a much higher resolution than a "normal" tv. I actually think that it is better (although that is not technically possible) than the VHS tape it copied from.

I don't want to discredit the other people that have replied to your post as they probably have tons more experience than I have and I may have been lucky, talking out my rear or whatever, but there may be a cheaper alternative than spending $1K plus on everything to get your movies onto VCD.

ps. I was able to get 25-30 minutes of audio (lowest setting) and video on a CD (700MB).

[gNOMEintheRedHat]

Grruup!

The Forum burped.

[gNOMEintheRedHat]

320sycamore,

I thought I'd toss my $0.02 into the pot.

To save some money and get the fastest PC you might look at your local computer shop.

They usualy can build a bare bones system to your spec far cheaper than a BOX from a SuperStore.....

(example)
I gust this weekend bought a PC for my father-in-law to start archiving their home movies.

MSI Motherboard
2000+ AMD CPU
Case + PowerSuply
Floppy
64Meg gForce2 (not needed for VCD )
$295

Shopped the Hollidy Sales
120GB Hard Drive $119 after rebate
24X CD-RW $56 after rebate

got a cheap $50 capture card.

He may upgrade to a $$$ Hardware MPEG capture card down the road.

All totaled $470 and change for EVERYTHING

If you are not comfortable installing everything yourself, add $100 to have the Computer Shop install it for you.

Also, As was stated earlier, A standalone hardware burner may make things go quicker.

Have Fun
gNOME....

[fonoop]

I have a lot of home movies myself and after trying to get the most out of a vcd, the quality just wasn't the same as the original. My dvd player doesn’t support SVCD, so I went the route of the DVD stand-alone recorder. I got the Panasonic DMR-E20 about a week ago and I been very happy with it. You can’t tell the difference between the original and the DVD on my 32' screen (in SP mode). Another plus is it starts and stops recording immediately when you hit the button, so editing is a breeze. The biggest downside for me is buying the DVD-R media. For the moment I'm using apple media ($5 apiece) which really adds up after awhile. So, I'll be looking for cheaper media that works with it. You'll have to weigh the options (doing filtering, etc.) but in my opinion the easiest way is to get the stand-alone dvd recorder.

[320sycamore]

Well I just can't thank you all enough for these great replies!! So much info to go over, wow! I am a little familiar with VCD's. I had to make two backups of my 8 year olds favorite DVD movies, which were becoming very scratched from a lot of handling even tho he tried to be careful, lol!
So I've made VCD's from DVD by using the terrific guides on this site. But I have absolutely no experience with the whole capturing thing. And even after reading all the stuff about capturing here, I was still a little bewildered by all the specs and stuff.
Definately getting a better idea now, thanks to all these replies. I know from my reading here that home movie VCD's can have text and background music, menu's, stuff like that and I know my parents want those kinds of features. So it looks like we will have to go with a custom build at a local computer shop. Now I just have to figure out which Capture Card can capture from VCR, Reel and both cameras.
Thanks again everyone!!!

[TakeTheActive]

320sycamore:

I've been doing a LOT of reading on capturing and then creating VCDs/SVCDs over the past few months. Since I also have a collection of family films on 8mm, Super8 and VHS, I check out those articles too. Do a SEARCH here, All Forums, on timebase, time base, out of sync (stuff like that - one item at a time - see what comes back) - no one in this thread mentioned it yet, but, others have complained in other threads about the video and audio getting out-of-sync when copying from non-digital sources.

One thread, which I can't find now, stated that NO professional would ever even consider doing such a simple task as copying a VHS tape to VCD without a time base corrector (and they aren't cheap).

And, regarding your budget, for the film stuff, you're going to need a way to digitize it, http://moviestuff.tv/condenser.html, another "not so cheap" idea (BUT, if you have more than 13.6 50' rolls of film, purchase is cost-justified in the long run).

Keep reading, and don't believe EVERYTHING you read until you've seen it confirmed several times by unrelated sources.

Good Luck!

UPDATE:

Found the thread on sync problems & the timebasecorrector:
http://www.network54.com/Hide/Forum/thread?forumid=70438&messageid=1021605334

[YES - the ads are a PITA, and it's hard to search (use the FAQ/SEARCH link on the top of the screen), but, there is a LOT of information there too, though not as organized as here...]

[macleod]

I will definetely agree with the previous post about not believing everything you read. I honestly feel that everyone that makes the post is genuinely trying to offer valuable suggestions, tips, and to have you benefit from their "lessons learned", but sometimes it just boils down to your own personal experience, i.e. my version of flawless conversion could be much different from your version, etc.

I'd just continue scouring the site and learn as much as you can before making whatever final purchasing decision you decide to make.

From one newbie to another.....

[EricB]

My $0.02

Having gotten into digital video primarily to convert family video to VCD / DVD I would give some serious consideration to a standalone DVD recorder like the Panasonic. If your goal is mainly to archive and not edit, the time saved in directly burning to DVD could be very significant. Even realtime capture devices still need a second authoring step and burn.

I also stray away from some conventional wisdom that VCD or SVCD is good enough for VHS. In my opinion, some of my older tapes have degraded enough that I really want to capture everything that is left. By using DVD, I can rest assured that I am getting everything, and also be compatible playing in a large number of DVD players.

With the amount of backlog of material you describe, plus adding new material all the time, plus a fairly constrained budget ($800), I think the standalone recorder may be the best option.

[Plant_Guy]

Wow, I see there are a lot of opinions on this subject! I feel that I must chime in again, so at the risk of getting flamed, I would like to summarize what others have said, and based on my experience, add my opinions.

Options:

1) Get a DVD recorder. Pros: no computer experience necessary; results obtainable very quickly. Cons: better machines come out all the time; no editing facilities; costly media, etc. If you go this route, I would seriously suggest purchasing from a place that will give you a full refund if your testing shows that you cannot get acceptable results from the recorder.

2) Get a PC. Pros: flexibility; lots of software and options for quality etc.; editing is a breeze for simple cut and pastes and titles; cheap media; PC can be used for other purposes, including watchin TV and reading my opinions (really important). Cons: let's face it, large time investment due to complexity of setup and configuration, so if you need to get it done with a minimum of fuss, don't do it!

3) Pay a pro to do it, and be done with it! I wouldn't use this option, so no comment.

I want to address the PC issue, though. Local PC shops cannot give you a better PC for less, in my experience. As an example, I just got my PC from UBid, and I paid $470 for it. Specs below:

Athlon XP1600+
512MB Ram
60HD
DVD-ROM
CD-RW
Modem
LAN card
Firewire Ports
WindowsXP Home
Speakers, Mouse, Keyboard (blue backlighting, real cool)

To address the post before regarding the local shop, he does not have memory, modem, network card, firewire ports, etc. in his list, and unless you plan on "borrowing" a copy of WinXP, he just does not come in any cheaper! I know, because I searched the net for cheap parts (www.googlegear.com, www.mwave.com, www.newegg.com, etc.) and once it all is added up, you are spending at least 200 more for an unsupported PC! I have built my own PC several times, but it is because I wanted the best of everything, NOT because I was on a budget! For a nice look at a high and low end configuration example, go to http://www.sharkyextreme.com and look at their monthly high and low end PC rigs. BTW, the only add on to the HP rig was my AverTV stereo card for $49.00, which answers your capture question. Also as a side note, you need to be a little patient with the bids, because some morons up the bidding b/c they do not know what they are looking at. Also important is only bidding on auctions sponsored by UBid b/c they back up the bid, and you get a safety net you do not get with eBay!! Hope this helps!

TomG. - aka Plant_Guy