(VHS to DVD) AVI filtering vs. straight MPEG; Post your comparisons

[sanlyn]

Streaks and ripples are commonly found in old tape (and sometimes they show up on new tapes after only 1 or 2 plays). It's just one of the hazards of streaming mylar's thin magnetic layer across video and audio heads. Older tape gets brittle and the magnetic layer gets oxidized, leaving a fine grit on everything with every play, and that grit kinda scours the next tape. But it's just plain unavoidable. Tape is tape.

If this is the original tape, not a copy of it, the field hopping is from unstable playback. More stable playback and a line tbc can often prevent or hide it, but I believe your DVD recorder likely has a built-in tbc. The tbc from older JVC's is a bit primitive compared to good Toshiba and Panasonic recorders from the early 2000's used as pass-thru devices. But people swear by JVC, so what can I say (all three of mine died, one new, two used). I don't even remember my 9911, it's been a while, but the Dynamic Drum feature had various effects. You just have to try it and see.

Old tape starts hopping around if it's not packed well enough, so repacking can often solve many problems. Repacking means to forward a tape all the way to the end, then reverse back all the way. Don't pause, don't play it. Just forward and back. You might have to repeat a time or two. The idea is to repack the tape onto the feed reel so that it lies flat in its windings, without edges sticking up and drooping in little piles. I don't know that a VCR with DYanmic Drum will affect that or not. Don't chance it. Just use a plain old VCR. Do NOT use those awful tape winders. They will destroy your tape.

Sorry I don't know more about Macs. My wife and I also use a new Win7 PC, but there's no way I'm going to throw away half my video software just to see Aero effects in Win7 and fight its interface. And I ain't throwing out my ATI All-In-Wonder AGP's. So I built two XP PC's from old and new parts, one a copy of the other....just in case (but that's no guarantee, either. Life is hard). The last time I used a Mac was about 1998.

[2Bdecided]

My advice: If it's just at the start, don't worry about it.

My other advice: if this is an old precious tape, it's not a great idea to be trying it lots of times on various random VCRs you can find. Sods law says you'll wreck it before you get chance to make the "ideal" capture.

Cheers,
David.

[Mini-Me]

Old tape starts hopping around if it's not packed well enough, so repacking can often solve many problems. Repacking means to forward a tape all the way to the end, then reverse back all the way. Don't pause, don't play it. Just forward and back. You might have to repeat a time or two. The idea is to repack the tape onto the feed reel so that it lies flat in its windings, without edges sticking up and drooping in little piles. I don't know that a VCR with DYanmic Drum will affect that or not. Don't chance it. Just use a plain old VCR. Do NOT use those awful tape winders. They will destroy your tape.

Do you know what it is about them that makes them so bad? Do they just run at too high of a speed, or have trouble knowing when to stop, or what?

[sanlyn]

If you take the top cover off a VCR, you can watch the tape going from the feed reel, past some guides and rollers, around the revolving cylinder (the "drum") and its video heads, into more guides and rollers, past the capstan and rollers and the audio head, and thru more guides into the take-up reel. It's a wonder it doesn't tear or break, and it's gravity hat helps it along.

[Mini-Me]

As complex as VCR's are, you'd think that rewinding/fastforwarding would be more dangerous to your tapes when you do it using VCR's...so why are the single-purpose tape-rewinding machines so much more likely to damage your tape?

[sanlyn]

VCR rewind is slower, and the pressure poinst are lifted because the tape isn't being played, it's being passed one side to the other. It does cross the audio head (that's how your tape readout knows the tape's timing as it's rewound). Cheap rewinders go faster, the cheap parts inside wobble, the cheap guides aren't that great, and it gets dusty inside: tape scrubbing across grit at high speed gets damaged. None of those winders has the engineering to handle emrgenbcies, such as tape hanging a bit as it comes off one reel, getting tangled, etc. -- the gears just yank the tape, there's no torque or pressure monitoring.

[jagabo]

Of course, some VCRs have high speed rewind that's similar to standalone rewinders -- they pull the tape back into the case and rewind directly from reel to reel. They include an optical sensor so they can stomp on the brakes when the leader is detected (so the tape doesn't break).

[lordsmurf]

Seems like a lot of effort for 12 tapes. Between necessary hardware, software, and time -- not to mention skill set -- it's probably a better idea to just hire a competent professional. It'll usually be long-term lower cost, better quality, and less hassle.

You don't have to DIY.

Somebody else mentioned it would be "hundreds" of dollars to do a good job. However, it's actually more like several THOUSANDS of dollars, all things considered. That's why a small stack of tapes should really just be outsourced to professionals for a few hundred bucks.