VHS to DVD to PC again.

[Balliol]

I apologise in advance if this question has been asked before but I have received so much differing advice that my ability to understand it has gone into overload.

All I want to do is to copy some family VHS tapes to DVDs, edit the rubbish from them and then make copies to give to my children while I am still able to.

I have managed to get as far as recording some of the VHS tape to DVD discs by connecting a VHS player to a DVD recorder running through a TV. I tested the DVDs and they ran alright on the TV.

I then placed the DVDs in the PC and all that showed was the one still picture that showed with the title page of the DVD when played on the TV.

I placed my curser on the disc icon in My Computer, right clicked, selected, OPEN and there were two icons.

The top one was Video_RM and the one underneath Video_TS .

I double click on the Video_RM and three icons showed.
Video_RM.BUP
Video_RM.DAT
VIDEO_RM.IFO

I double clicked on Video _TS and seven icons showed.
Video_TS.BUP
Video_TS.IFO
Video_TS.VOB
VTS_01_0.BUP
VTS_01_1.IFO
VTS_01._1VOB
VTS_01_2.VOB

Even with my limited experience I recognised that this means that it is possible to access the files on the DVD and open them to show what I will refer to as the sub files such as the VOB ones played some of the VHS film. The others didn’t but from there I’m stuck.

The original VHS tapes have a lot of rubbish such as an hour or so of film of a newly dug pond filling with water and an old wedding film has white flashes which I assume are frames with no film in them and it is this that I want to edit out.

Having looked through various forums I believe rather than know that I need to alter the format or convert them from the format that the DVDs are in at the moment to something that will play on the PC before they can be edited or played on a PC and that can be done by ripping them. Having done that, I believe, rather than know, that I then need an editing package.

I have been told that I need to rip the DVDs into, VOB files and save them into folders. Shrink the folders then convert the video and audio streams from the VOBs into AVIS then use a video editing program to edit the scenes then re-encode edited files and burn to blank DVD with freeware burning software.

Please tell me that its not as complicated as that because I thought that all I needed was ripping software and editing software suitable for a novice. If I am right could someone please recommend what software I need.

[hech54]

You don't even need "rippng software" for doing what you want to do.
1) Copy the VIDEO_TS folder to your computer.
2) Download the little application called FixVTS.
3) Drag the VTS_01._1VOB into FixVTS and repair(fix) FULL DVD....and do it "in place - no backup(make sure all 3 boxes are checked).
To see if it is now "fixed"....download the trial version of TMPGEnc DVD Author and load the contents of the VIDEO_TS folder into it(via "add DVD Video").

[Balliol]

Tried that and a message came up saying:
Couldn't backup D:\Video_TS\Video_TS.VOB

[hech54]

Do you mean a simple right click, copy, right click, paste on the VIDEO_TS folder in Windows Explorer resulted in your computer saying Couldn't backup?

[Balliol]

I followed your instructions as follows:
Copied the VIDEO_TS folder to my desktop.
Downloaded FixVTS.
Draged the VTS_01._1VOB into FixVTS and repair(fix) FULL DVD....and do it "in place - no backup(make sure all 3 boxes are checked).

However, there were only two boxes, (which I ticked) “Remove unref and blank cells” and “In place (no backup!).

I tried to right click, copy, right click, paste but it dident work so I then did what the VTS box said which was, “To start, drag/drop a problematic VOB file.

This time I was left with a neat line in blue which I suspect means that the VOB file was processed and written underneath was, “100% Processed.

However, the idea was to get it into Windows Movie Maker to edit it and I’m lost again.

I version that I downloaded, “FixVTS—Beta 0.96 which I hope was the right one.

Sorry to be a pain.

[turk690]

to Balliol, it seems as though your original VHS tapes need a fair amount of editing BEFORE getting committed to DVD. DVD is primarily meant to be a distribution, NOT an editing system. One can only attempt limited editing activities on what is after all a compressed system (despite what DVD recorder manufacturers & enthusiasts would have you believe). The best (quality & editing-wise) method in a domestic situation would still be capturing through a DV device (say, a camcorder with analogue in, in pass-through or outright record modes), then editing the captured AVI files, encoding to DVD-compliant MPEG, then authoring a DVD. Windows XP already has a rudimentary program in it--Movie Maker, to get you started. You also have the run of this whole site to piece together your steps.
The idea of recording directly to DVD is certainly seductive but it is acceptable only IF you have nothing to edit in or out of the original VHS tapes. When one has, such as in your case, graduated to even a simple editing chore, DVD recorders ARE out of the question. The best would be to invest in a DV camcorder with analogue in, and AV-to-DV pass-through features, and a DVD-rewriter in the PC. THEN, wonders will happen.
I go out of my way to nip in the bud when it starts to shoot out the notion that DVD IS an editing medium. It is mostly NOT. Elsewhere in this site is any entry by a moderator describing the pitfalls of DVD recorders, with model numbers and problem descriptions. Indeed VHS as an editing medium was not even that bad.

[hech54]

I followed your instructions as follows:
However, there were only two boxes, (which I ticked) “Remove unref and blank cells” and “In place (no backup!).

Thats OK...one of us is using a different version of FixVTS...no problems.
So now the usual problems of a DVD Recorder disc should be fixed whether you can actually SEE the repair or not....better safe than sorry.
NOW...you'll need convert the .VOB files to regular .mpg files. There are many in the TOOLS section.....but I use MPEG-VCR. It is also an editor by the way.....it is NOT free but I believe it is still a 30 free trial and is a GREAT product.
You may also want to simply rename the .vob files into .mpg files.....that sometimes works....sometimes not.....if not just rename them back to .vob.
Once you convert those .vob's into .mpg files....you now should be able to use them in Windows Movie maker. I've never used Movie Maker though....sorry.
Don't forget about TMPGEnc DVD Author if it is still a free trial....that can accept .vob files without having to convert to .mpg.

[hech54]

Also check out Lordsmurf's guide for doing exactly what you are trying to do and with the same programs:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/dvdguides/edit/editmpeg/removecommercials.htm

[ranchhand]

Hi Balliol,

Well, I am exactly in your postition, and I just emerged from the Video Hell learning curve. I have a lot of old, analog (not digital) camcorder tapes of our family and the children growing up that are priceless to our family, besides several old and dear friends whose children are also in those tapes and would love copies for themselves! Since analog is close to being extinct, I figured it was time to burn them to DVD for safety. And then hell broke loose. If it were not for the great advice from this forum I would never have found my way out of that swamp! Well, in a nutshell...

What you want to do is to take your analog tapes and convert them to mpeg2 files. That is your "hump". Once you have those converted to high quality mpeg2 files, there are any of a number of good programs that will open and edit them.

There are only two ways of doing this. One is by trying to use software (Pinnacle, Ulead, Nero, etc.) and the other is using a dedicated capture card with a chip that does the work. With software you will end up tearing your hair out. With a chip you will get excellent quality mpeg2 files.

I used (on the advice of this forum) the Hauppauge 250 capture card, with the Hauppauge Win TV2000 Software, and it worked like a dream. As smooth as a baby's cheek. I had tried using Ulead and Pinnacle10 to convert and they would not see my analog camcorder. Not a chance. I downloaded so many trials of software I lost count, and none of them would detect my camcorder. The couple that did produced total garbage and called it mpeg.

I now use Pinnacle10+ that imports my 1.6Gig files smoothly (that I captured with the Hauppauge card) , and I have edited, authored and burned DVDs that are every bit the quality as the original camcorder tapes. Plus editing out bad sections (like you have), adding a menu in the beginning, creating chapters, etc. Smooth as silk.

I know you won't run right out and buy Pinnacle, but just a word of caution: Pinnacle requires a powerful computer with heavy resources, at least a gig of memory, and a large hard drive for storing the huge files generated. There are a lot of users that have problems with Pinnacle, but I have discovered what I think is a major reason. If you want more info on Pinnacle I can supply it.
Hope I helped a little.

[qpskfec]

Since the op already has a dvd recorder, this is the process I would use:

Record to the set top dvd recorder, the use the PC

Use DVDecrypter in ifo mode to rip the entire video to one file
(decrypting isn't needed, but DVDecrypter will produce one large vob instead of many vobs)

Load the file into an mpeg cutter like VideoRedo, cut whatever you want out, save the file. It will also join vobs, so you can skip using dvdecrypter if you just copy the vob files from the dvd. (Videoredo has a free trial)

Load the file(s) into a DVD authoring program, I use Ulead DVD Movie Factory, author, burn, done. This is the process I use.
(Any authoring sw should work)

[Balliol]

Many thanks for all your advice which as I now feel very tired I will have to leave untill the morning when I will be fit enough to do it justice. I will come back to let you know how I got on.

[mairambija]

visit SPAM and transfer your home video tapes to dvd. You can get a pretty good conversion at a reasonable price from a lot of places. But what are most of these companies lacking? Care and attention to detail! Other ways you get totally amateurish product done with domestic equipment.

[Balliol]

There is so much interesting advice here that it’s like getting lost in a sweet shop but I have downloaded so much trial software and found it lacking in one way or another that I feel like keeping on until I get to what is the most simple solution and the one offered by Turk690 looks worth looking at.

You said two things that interested me:

1. That the best (quality & editing-wise) method in a domestic situation would still be capturing through a DV device (say, a camcorder with analogue in, in pass-through or outright record modes), then editing the captured AVI files, encoding to DVD-compliant MPEG, then authoring a DVD.


2. That the best would be to invest in a DV camcorder with analogue in, and AV-to-DV pass-through features, and a DVD-rewriter in the PC. The only problem with that appears to me to me is that a DV Camcorder with analogue is old technology and if I ever buy another camcorder perhaps it should be new technology. I hope I'm not totally wrong there.

Two questions:
1. How does one capture through a DV device (say, a camcorder with analogue in, in pass-through or outright record modes?

2. I have an ancient Panasonic NV-M1OB VHS video recorder built like the proverbial brick house which uses large tapes about 7.5” X 4” X 1” Do you know if it is possible to use that in the way you suggest?

[turk690]

A DV camcorder records digital signals to tape. The part that is analogue in it is the input to the analogue-to-digital converter prior to recording on tape, which will always be there and therefore difficult to say whether or not it's old technology. A very good, reasonably priced DV camcorder that has not been totally been given over to the easy crowd would be the Canon MVX460 (PAL, which I myself just recently bought; NTSC counterpart is Elura 100). After obtaining this the only two other pieces of hardware you need are an OHCI FireWire card, and a DVD-rewriter, both for the PC.
It's possibly to use your ancient VHS recorder but you will have to invest in a capture device for the PC that will accept analogue inputs from that recorder. A good start would be any of Canopus DV capture devices, like the AVC-50 or 100.
You will now have to weigh what benefits you will get from any approach. In my experience, the slightly higher cost for the DV camcorder and FireWire card combination is more than made up in better control and output quality than the internal DV capture device. Think of this: you can use the camcorder to shoot high-quality video (which is what it was primarily designed for) but you cannot do the same thing with the capture device (which is strictly only for capturing analogue video, such as from your VHS, converting it into DV files onto your HDD).
If the VHS source is more or less OK you can use the DV camcorder's AV-to-DV pass-through feature. Here you connect the VHS analogue outputs to the camcorder inputs, connect the FireWire terminals of the camcorder to the card, fire up your PC and your preferred editing/capture program, & set the camcorder to AVin-to-DVout. The camcorder just sits there; it merely converts the analogue inputs to DV-AVI files in realtime onto your HDD.
If the VHS source is glitchy and has drop-outs galore, you may have to record it to DV tape first BEFORE capturing that tape. This is where the camcorder advantage kicks in: even if the drop-outs from the VHS are severe, it continues to merrily record, audio and video always in perfect sync, and later in editing, it's easy to cut off these portions. On the other hand internal DV capture devices may not cope with severe dropouts and may either stop capturing or introduce out-of-sync portions between audio and video on the final DV-AVI file or hang the capture program or all of the above.
All these takes a little getting used to but in the end is infinitely more productive in situations such as yours which require a fair amount of editing compared with bludgeoning the mass into MPEG files at once at the very start. It will certainly require work, which is what manufacturers fear will turn people off that's why they try to make it appear as if DVD recorders and camcorders are the easiest things to use in the world, always producing quality like those of Sony's Superbit DVDs. Not. Then you fall flat after you've been seduced.

[Saburo]

You don't even need "rippng software" for doing what you want to do.
1) Copy the VIDEO_TS folder to your computer.
2) Download the little application called FixVTS.
3) Drag the VTS_01._1VOB into FixVTS and repair(fix) FULL DVD....and do it "in place - no backup(make sure all 3 boxes are checked).

I just got this "FixVTS" program because my Sony DVD Recorder (RDR-HX900) was producing RW+ discs that couldn't be read by my PC. However fixing the DVD folder did not produce a workable DVD that could be recognized by DVD Author or even Womble MPEG2VCR except as unrecognizable garbage.

Dragged the first vob file, checked all three boxes and clicked the full DVD button. The resulting video ts folder had three vob files of which only the last one (only about 294MB) had actual workable audio/video. The other two 1GB files playback nothing.

Just wondering if anyone else struck out with this solution and if there's something to this particular Sony's output to RW+ that can't be fixed.

Thanks for any suggestions.

[The_Doman]

I just got this "FixVTS" program because my Sony DVD Recorder (RDR-HX900) was producing RW+ discs that couldn't be read by my PC. However fixing the DVD folder did not produce a workable DVD that could be recognized by DVD Author or even Womble MPEG2VCR except as unrecognizable garbage.

Just wondering if anyone else struck out with this solution and if there's something to this particular Sony's output to RW+ that can't be fixed.

Some DVD recorders indeed produce DVD structures which can't be imported in the well known DVD author/edit programs.
I had the same problems.

The solution which worked for me was to use DVDDecrypter to copy the needed video/chapters to HD.
Best is to set the DVDDecrypter VOB output as non splitted so there are no lost frames when importing the video in your edit/author program.

[Saburo]

Best is to set the DVDDecrypter VOB output as non splitted so there are no lost frames when importing the video in your edit/author program.

Hi, thanks for your reply. I just tried this with Decrypter in IFO mode and turned off the file splitting option. I got a 2GB+ VOB file but the file would not open at all in MPEG2VCR; in fact the program froze up completely so I assume I produced garbage again.

Are there particular settings in Decrypter that I have to tweak before it's able to rip to a readable VOB?

Thanks again for the help!