Help with VHS to DVD transfer set up

[Tigergreg]

I am very new to this. This is probably the most basic of questions. I believe I have the hardware and software needed, but I am unsure of some of the connections. I have a PC that runs Windows XP, I have a TDK 4X Indi DVD burner and the software that comes with it. Here's my question. Don't I need a VCR to play the VHS tape in order to capture it on the computer?. One problem is that it does not look like the burner will accomodate the connections from a VCR, or do I go right to the computer? I assume I need the VCR to play the tape that will be captured on the computer and then burned on the DVD disc. Bottom line is: what gets connected to what? Any help you could give me would be appreciated.

[BJ_M]

does your computer have a video in ? (and as far as i know you will need a vcr to play vhs tapes), if not , you will need to get a video capture card or a dv transcoder and firewire card ..

[snafu099]

You need a way to input (capture) to the computer. Low end capture cards or external devices mostly capture in avi format, some like the ADS usb line are external usb mpg-2 hardware encoders. (adstech.com)

You do not necessarily need the vcr if you have alternateive way to play the source and feed it to the capture device. Like your camcorder

[FulciLives]

You need some sort of capture card be it an internal PCI card or an external card which hooks up via the USB 2 or FIREWIRE ports.

You have many choices here. The cheapest is the TV tuner type of PCI card which is usually around $40 to $60 and can provide excellent image quality but often times you will have audio sync problems.

The next solution is something that captures direct to MPEG-2 which is faster than the first solution but gives you less control over the quality.

If you want a solution that works really well and is easy to use (even for someone not overly experienced) then look into the Canopus ADVC-100 or the DataVideo DAC-100 (both seem to be more-or-less identical).

You might be a bit shocked at the price (the Canopus is usually $250 to $300 with the DataVideo being a good $50 to $100 cheaper) but like I said it works really well and is easy to use.

Over on the left hand side of the screen there is a section called CAPTURE CARDS. If you look there you will see that the Canopus ADVC-100 is the top user rated capture card/device.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Magyck]

OK, I have a question that is on simular lines to this so I'll just post it here... I have a Canopus ADVC-100, it works really well and I've been trying to convert some old home videos of vhs to vcd... this has all been working great and all but a few days ago I bought a dvd burner. I now need to know... what do I need to do differently to make fairly decent dvds... I don't want it to be too hard as I'm not that great with these things but I am willing to research and try to learn in order to get the best outcome since these tapes do mean a lot to me. not really to bothered about fancy menus and stuff, mainly quality...

Now in the past for the vcds I was using Ulead VideoStudio 6 to capture, TMPGEnc for compression, and nero for burning. Can anybody tell me what would be the best software to use for dvds, and best File formats to capture in etc?

[Tigergreg]

Thanks for the responses. I'm going to look into this to see what I may still need and give it a shot. Many home videos to do!

[g wiz]

Tigergreg,

One thing you should consider before buying the greatest, most expensive capture card on the market is that no matter how good the capture card is it wont make your videos look any better than the original source. If your VHS cassettes are ten years old and kind of grainy when you play them on your VCR then a 300 dollar capture card isn't going to give you DVD quality results no matter how hard you try. If you have a video camera or something like that and you plan on creating a lot of DVDs from that then I'd say definitely go with the ADVC-100.

[FulciLives]

OK, I have a question that is on simular lines to this so I'll just post it here... I have a Canopus ADVC-100, it works really well and I've been trying to convert some old home videos of vhs to vcd... this has all been working great and all but a few days ago I bought a dvd burner. I now need to know... what do I need to do differently to make fairly decent dvds... I don't want it to be too hard as I'm not that great with these things but I am willing to research and try to learn in order to get the best outcome since these tapes do mean a lot to me. not really to bothered about fancy menus and stuff, mainly quality...

Now in the past for the vcds I was using Ulead VideoStudio 6 to capture, TMPGEnc for compression, and nero for burning. Can anybody tell me what would be the best software to use for dvds, and best File formats to capture in etc?

Well you capture as you normally would with your Canopus ADVC-100 then trim it up in VirtualDub or I suppose VideoStudio then just use TMPGEnc as always but pick one the the DVD templates. If you are going to leave the resolution at Full D1 then you probably will want to do a 2-pass VBR and it is good to not drop the AVG below 4000kbps ... in fact I don't like to go below 5000kbps but of course you are at the mercy of the length of what it is VS the capacity of a DVD recordable. If you have to go much lower than 5000kbps then you might want to try Half D1 which is an option in the template (at the very end you change the resolution from 720x480/576 to 352x480/576 and in fact the template will do this for you if your AVG is less than 4000kbps).

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Magyck]

Thanks FulciLives... so then just use Nero to buen as usual as well? is there any better programs that would be useful? I'm also lookingfor something to edit out small parts of the tapes... any suggestions? I got a program called Ulead dvd Moviefactory with my burner... would that do it? sorry about all the questions... its just that I tried out SO many different programs when I first started making vcds... just don't want to have to do that again...