What is needed to copy DVD's and transfere VHS & 8mm to

[uncleB]

Dear Friends
I want to be able to transfer some older family VHS & 8mm tapes to DVD and also to copy some DVD movies to DVD (Being able to duplicate the original of either so it’s hard to tell the difference). If it helps, looking at my systems properties it says that I have a AMD Anthlon™ XP 1800+ (processor), 256 megs of RAM, I use Windows 98SE, and have about 33 gigs (of 60 gig) available on my Hard Drive, a 3D fx Voodoo Banshee Display Driver, and I don’t know what else. What I need is your advice of hardware and software that has worked for you. I’d especially like it if there is someone out there with some of the specs that are similar to mine that have had good to excellent results with the products they’ve used. I’ll reiterate that I am one who does want the best results so please whatever you’ve used to achieve results you’re happy with let me know all involved. I also ask that you be as simple in your explanation as possible, for I am unfamiliar with many of the products and terms that you’ve been good enough to give me in the past.

Thanks for all your help
& God Bless
Uncle Bob

[Will Hay]

I haven't time to research your graphics card so I'm going to assume it doesn't have a capture facility.
First, you need some way of getting the analogue (VHS) signal into your machine.
You do this by feeding a series of composite cables (red, yellow and white) from your source (VHS) to the 'video in' on the back of your capture card.
A budget capture card would be an ATI Radeon ViVo (video in, video out) 64mb which I used prefectly for eighteen months.
Further up the laddder (or deeper into your pockets) is an ATI All In Wonder.
Normally the audio is captured via the 'line in' of your sound card.
Secondly, you need software to capture the signal.
I prefer Virtualdub, but you can use the software that comes with the ATI cards.
You then need to select a method of compression (a codec) for when you capture the signal, as uncompressed footage is very large in size (I can't remember exactly).
You also need to select frame size (I use 352 x 576 because I'm in the UK and beleive this is sufficient for VHS capture) and audio quality.
This brings me to your second problem, you have too small space left on a small-ish hard drive, coupled with the problem of you running Win98, which has a 4gb file limit (this means for every hour you capture, and assuming you're capturing at 20gb for every hour captured you're going to end up with five seperate files for every hour captured).
Not ideal.
Once captured to your HDD (hard disk drive) you need to encode that file (an AVI file) to a DVD compliant file, ie mpeg2.
I use TMPGEnc for this.
The quality is dependant on the settings you choose, but breifly, for VHS, if you're capturing at 352 x 576 then 4000kb/sec is more than sufficient.
You then need to author your mpeg2 file with a program such as TMPGEnc Author or Ulead Movie Factory.
This lets you add menus and chapters points and will burn to a blank DVD-r.
An alternative I took to my ATI card is a hardware device called the Canopus ADVC-100.
It eliminates the problems associated with anaolgue capture cards such as frame loss and audio video sync issues; trust me, you will have to contend with these unless you're very lucky from the outset.
The ADVC-100 takes a anaolgue signal and converts it to DV (digital video) before it reaches your computer, it's really just a process of transferring the footage.
This file size runs at 13gb/hour.
I can see your mind clicking...
...."why don't I just capture direct to mpeg2?"
Simple.
Editing mpeg2 is not recommended, so if you plan to remove unwanted footage, adding transitions, fades etc (with a program such as Pinnacle Sudio 8 - you'll see I haven't touched on the editing phase!) then you need to be capturing to avi first.
Also, capturing directly to mpeg2 is not as "easy" as avi, I'm of the opinion that whilst it can be close it's not as good a quality as capturing to avi and encoding to mpeg2 with TMPGEnc.
Also, you need a relatively powerful computer.
I've played around with capturing direct to mpeg2 with the MainConcept Encoder and whilst have been impressed haven't researched it enough to stick with it.
That's the basics, it's taken me fifteen minutes of my day to do that so do me a favour, go read the numerous guides on the left of your screen and come back with specific questions.
Good luck with your new hobby
Will Hay

[macleod]

As far as copying dvd's, you'll need a dvd burner on your computer and an application like dvdshrink. Numerious guides on the left giving you the options available for dvd backups.

As far as transfering VHS and 8mm to dvd, my questions are "which way do you want to do it and how much time do you want to spend on this (aka do you want to do this as a hobby or get it done)?"

Hobby: What Willhay has suggested

Get it done: buy a standalone dvd recorder like the panasonic E30, record onto that, then author using an application like TMPGENC DVD Author, and then burn

The hobby way will take you to the dark side of all of this. I am (was) an video enthusiast and learned all the little ins and outs of video in order to capture/convert/edit/burn VCD's all the way through DVD's. Now that I have a small business doing this, it would take forever to do it that way (something ALWAYS goes a little wrong) so the standalone was the way to go. Gives GREAT results.

Hope this helps.

[Will Hay]

Hobby: What Willhay has suggested

Get it done: buy a standalone dvd recorder like the panasonic E30, record onto that, then author using an application like TMPGENC DVD Author, and then burn

The hobby way will take you to the dark side of all of this. I am (was) an video enthusiast and learned all the little ins and outs of video in order to capture/convert/edit/burn VCD's all the way through DVD's. Now that I have a small business doing this, it would take forever to do it that way (something ALWAYS goes a little wrong) so the standalone was the way to go. Gives GREAT results.

Whilst I tried to infer it depends to some extent on your budget the above is a great point well made.
This is by far the easiest route but it isn't for me, I'm a sadist

That's the basics, it's taken me fifteen minutes of my day to do that so do me a favour, go read the numerous guides on the left of your screen and come back with specific questions.

Do me another favour, stop posting the same message over and over in different forums.
It makes those that help feel like they're wasting their time.
Will