Need some recomendations for hardware/software

[dapmco]

Im purchasing a Dell desktop soon.

Im new to this and have a large number of VHS/8mm tapes I would like to get to DVD.

Im looking for recomendations on how to capture these different sources and some good authoring tools to get them saved to DVD.

Thanks

Dave Taylor

[DVDDude]

I think Panasonic had a DV/VHS machine, that I used a couple of years ago. You could capture both DV and VHS via firewire and the result was surprisingly good. It was of course a bit expensive, but I just thought would mention it. I am sure there are other hardware solutions available today.

About Encoding and Authoring; http://www.tmpgenc.net/ has some nice and quite cheap solutions.

Hope this is a start, I am sure other people here can give you some better tips that are less expensive, I don’t really work with VHS very much.

[redwudz]

For VHS or 8mm analog video, first you need to convert to digital. You can use a capture card, or a DV converter box or purchase a DVD recorder and feed all them into it and do your editing on the computer. This is probably the cheapest and easiest solution.

Three main types of digital conversion: A capture card like the Hauppauge 250 that has hardware conversion to MPEG-2 format. From there you just edit, author and burn to DVD. Second is a AVI type capture card. You capture in a AVI format, edit, encode to MPEG-2, author and burn. If you prefer a capture solution, you can look to 'Capture Cards' to the left. <<<<<<

The third is a box that converts to DV format. You need a FireWire input on your computer for this. A big advantage of this system is locked audio/video sync. Sync can be a big problem with AVI capture cards. The Canopus ADVC-110 is one example. A DV camcorder with analog to DV passthrough will also do the same thing.

That part is ease of use. For best quality, many will capture with a low compression AVI format like HuffyUV using a capture card and convert that to MPEG with an encoder. Downside is very large files, maybe a 100GB at times. But quality may be arguably the best. DV is one of the easiest formats to edit and the locked sync is very handy. If you need lots of editing, it will be one of the best for that. A hardware MPEG encoder like the Hauppauge save a lot of time and disk space. Editng MPEG is not as easy as most AVI type editing. But with a good editor like VideoReDo or MPEG-VCR or similar, it works well.

That's a bit of overview. Now that DVD recorders with hard drives are more available, that would be my first choice for ease of use. If you add a MPEG editor to your computer and use a program like VOB2MPG, you can use the DVD from the DVR and re-edit it and convert it back to a finished DVD with a authoring program.

[kisrum]

Are the VHS home movies? If so, be aware that some otherwise fine capture cards that come in desktop units will take a vhs tape that looks good on your TV and through the miracle of digital conversion make it look like hell with all sorts of previously unnoticeable errors. They may have gotten better since I started fiddling with them in 2003, but I will be buying a dvd recorder soon to convert ten or so VHS tapes rather than fighting this battle. If they are macrovision copy-protected vhs then you've got a whole different problem.

This is useful. http://www.digitalfaq.com/dvdguides/capture/atiavi/atiavi.htm