FASTEST VHS to VCD Conversion - HOW?

[deseno]

If price is not an issue --

What would be the fastest way to create VCD from VHS tape?

Say a person had to do 100 of these a week - is there a machine to do this, or software that'll do it in one step, unattended?

Currently I am using ULead VideoStudio 6 and a Belkin VideoBus converter.

Also, if I had the digital tape from the camera, would this be easier/faster; would that open up any new options for creating VCDs FAST?

Thank you to anyone who can help!

Donna

[bugster]

If price is not an issue, then why not find a proffesional outfit that offesr this service. There are plenty around and they will convert your videos to VCD, SVCD or DVD if you prefer. Just search the web for a local company.

[kwag]

Hi Donna,

This is just an idea, which I use myself, but it's not a standard VCD. Although it does play in all my 5 differend DVD players. I have the Panasonic DMR-E20 DVD-R/DVD-RAM recorder. You can capture real-time to this machine in 1, 2, 4 and 6 hour mode. In 6 hour mode, the machine records 352x240 MPEG-2, which is the same resolution on a VCD, but uses variable bit rate. What I do is I capture VHS tapes in this mode ( 6 hour mode ) and I take the DVD-RAM to my PC where I have a DVD-RAM drive, and demux the video stream and audio stream. Then I only encode the audio from the recorded 48Khz to 44.1Khz. I don't touch the video stream. I multiplex the video stream as it is with the new encoded audio, as VCD VBR. I was surprised the first time I did this, that the program VCDEasy accept this multiplexed file as a STANDARD VCD , so you just burn as a standard VCD. The result you'll get is probably better than any hardware ( PC card ) encoder. Here's a small sample of what to expect: http://www.kvcd.net/dmr-e20-352x240-tricked-to-vcd.mpg
and my original story here : http://www.kvcd.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1448
Burn the sample as a VCD and play it on your DVD player. If you're going to play it on your PC, use WinDVD or PowerDVD.
However, if you want a 100% VCD compatible solution, this is not it. The reason is that your stream is MPEG-2 instead of MPEG1, and it's variable bit rate. But so far, it has worked so good for me, that I don't use capture cards anymore
You might want to consider this machine: http://www.microboards.com/current/products/cwlive.shtml
but I downloaded a sample from the net done with this machine, and the DMR-E20 beats it 8)

Hope this helps,
-kwag

[kwag]

Here's the link for the "CopyWriter Live" sample mpeg I found: http://www.cds.com/Duplicator/copywriterlive/CopywriterLive.mpg

-kwag

[SingSing]

If price is not an issue --

What would be the fastest way to create VCD from VHS tape?

Say a person had to do 100 of these a week - is there a machine to do this, or software that'll do it in one step, unattended?

Donna

Maybe there is a VCR with firewire output ( sony, JVC maybe ) ?

[G-man]

If it must be VCD, record using a Terrapin (but read the caveats in the VCD recorder section).

If using DVD media instead is OK, then use a DVD set-top recorder.

Batch your captures onto very large USB2 external hard drives on one PC.
When a hard drive is filled, move to another PC to do the encodes (batched via TMPGEnc) and burns there while the 1st is still doing captures.

[deseno]

WOW!

Thank you all for these ideas <scratching head>.... I thought I posted this in the Newbie section...


I think I might have stated my question wrong to begin with <ducking>....
these have to be in regular plain ole MPEG-1 so computer ignorami can play them on any Windows machine.
This is why I cannot simply make DVDs with a DVD burner.

I get videos that range from 3 minutes to 3 hours - the 3 minute ones, naturally, are not the problem! It's the 3 hour ones that are sinking me.

So, with that info...any VERY SIMPLE recommendations for converting VHS to MPEG-1 and burning to CD as FAST as possible!!

THANK you!!!
Donna

[rsuave5]

i keep a vcr hooked to my computer via a capture card i use the ati tv wonder but if price is not an issue check out betters push pal and record to your computer. i use avi_io to capture large avi clips then convert with tmpenc and burn with nero. fast? not really. but to do it yourself it works and pretty quick fore that application

[vcdfreak]

Get a standalone VCD recorder (~US$600) for realtime VCD mastering and standalone 5-writer rack (~US$900) to make 5 copies at one time with just 1 push button (no PC required).

[geniv]

I personnally don't like settop VCD recorders cause it's not as flexiable as a PC based capturecard.

I would suggestion you get a Hardware REaltime MPEG1/VCD capture card and a 48x CDR/W. I recommend and personally use the PV233 card or the WinTV PVR 250.

I just capture directly VCD format and then burn to CD right after with my 32x CDR. (total time is like 5 minutes more than the length of the movie) Of course I'm talking about video lenght of 1hour or less.

With video longer than 1 hour I simply pause the VCR and then record to a new file.

If you really wanna save time u can have 2 VCD encoder card hooked up to a single PC with different VCR hooked up to each card. (I would suggest u have 2 different type of card and a decent speed system)
and record both at the same time... not that I tried it but see no reason why it won't work

BTW: I just d/l a program the other day call WINDVR it's a software VCD capture program that work with any card that supports 3rd party application (ex. WinTV, ATI, or any other BT8x8 cards). The quality is very good on the VCD captures with no audio sync issue (again I advise u have a decent speed system 1ghz+) and it can be burned right after.

The good thing about WinDVR is when capturing to VCD u can set it to chunk the recording to another file after like 650megs so u don't have to paus and restart encoding... (damn, why can't other capture program do this )


hope this helps

[lusid]

The fastest way to do a lot of these, aside from a standalone vcd recorder, would be WinDVR. let it break it into 640 meg chunks as it records, then burn them as simple vcds with vcdimager.

With a simple batch file you could set up a context menu, so you right click an mpeg and select Burn as VCD.