What Software do I need?

[Pam]

I am a newbie to all this and am very confused as to exactly what software I need to burn my old VHS tapes to DVD. For Christmas I got a Pioneer A05, a Canopus ADVC-100, and an 80GB hard drive. I purchased an Adaptec FireConnect 4300 card and installed that. My Pioneer came with software (Sonic MyDVD 4, CinePlayer, Pinnacle InstantWrite and ArcSoft ShowBiz), and the FireConnect came with MGI VideoWave 4SE (and apparently no drivers, I assume I use the WinXP ones since it recognized the card). My Canopus was on back order so I haven't been able to try anything video yet (although I've burned a couple of music CDs). It's shipping now so I want to be ready. As yet I have not installed any of the software. I also purchased software called Movies to CD & DVD because that was the only software that mentioned being able to clean up and enhance the video (some of the old video was converted from 8mm home movies and is somewhat faded).

I've been reading the forums and there's mention of codec and capturing with one software and then burning with another. Do I have enough or do I need anything more? I did download TMPGEnc since it seems many use that but I haven't installed it yet. Any suggestions and recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

If it helps, I'm running a Pentium 4, 1.5 Ghz with 512MB RAM with WinXP Home. I may eventually get more involved in DVD burning but at this point I need things as simple as possible but yet get good results.

[metoo2]

I've got pretty much the same setup as you do.

Assume right off the bat that anything you create you will be able to do better later on, so keep all of your source material until you are positive that you can't do any better than what you've done already.

I use Virtualdub to encode to 640x480 Huffy-encoded avi, then use Tmpgenc to convert that to dvd-compliant mpeg2 (Tmpgenc has templates you can use). I then break out Sonic MyDvd and import the video into MyDvd. I create a menu, burn the dvd, and et voila! I have a DVD video!

I hatessss MyDVD, but I'm stuck with it until I can find something better.

Sonic MyDVD says it can capture for you, as does Ulead DVD Moviemaker. I tried both and couldn't get either to capture (possibly my computer system was to blame), but I much prefer to use Tmpgenc and Virtualdub anyway and keep the commercial software use to a bare minimum.

[BJ_M]

when you have a Canopus ADVC-100 you are not really capturing on the pc .. only transfering digital info via firewire ..

so any app that transfers DV firewire is al that is required to get it ON your hard drive as a DV formated file ...

scenalyzer is very good for this ..
http://www.scenalyzer.com/main.html

then you will need to filter VHS sources before mpeg2 (dvd) encoding .

you can do this simple by just using tmpgenc and its built in filters ... this is a good way to start and will produce very good results ..

before using tmpgenc to filter and encode your final mpeg2 file , you may want to do some editing of your material .. you could purchase some software to do that or use some freeware tools .

as you get comfortable with all of the above software you can ease into frame serving and filtering w/ v-dub or av-synth ..

Movies to CD & DVD is not very good software ..

when you have filtered and encoded your final mpeg2 file(s) , you will need to author them for dvd (Sonic MyDVD 4 is what you got for that) ...

as an alternitive - you could just get dvd workshop to do all of the above .. though im not familier with ulead products .

[thxkid]

If you can use AVI, with Divx or Huffy codecs Virtualdub is the way to go I can capture at 704x480 with my Happuage PVR card with superb results.

[Pam]

Thank you everyone for the info. My head is still reeling.

BJ_M mentioned Scenalyzer. Is that the newer Live version or the old freeware version? The website had both.

Will some of this software take care of the codec or do I need something else for that? I'm really not sure exactly what it is. I've done a lot of still photos but video is very new to me. This is like learning a foreign language. I really do appreciate the help.

[BJ_M]

microsoft has its own DV codec (in XP) but if you want a better one use the main concept DV codec ( www.mainconcept.com ) - but not freeware (but cheap) ...

Canopus also has a good dv codec ..

note : the dv codec is only used in playback of your material or in decompressing the Dv files and re-encoding into mpeg2 .. the codec you use makes no differance when you "capture" from a DV device ..

Scenalyzer -> both versions are reported to work good , but i dont use DV so i cant give you much more details on that score .. but its consistantly highly rated by many many people ..

[BJ_M]

though this site is great , you also may find some helpfull advise on the DV part of the operation here http://www.abcdv.com

then vcdhelp to convert your material into dvd ..

[EricB]

Pam,

I use DV exclusively and would suggest that you can capture with several applications. Scenalyzer is great, but its not necessary. I use Live and would recommend that you try it and see if you like it.

For just getting started, I would get a copy of ULEAD DVD MovieFactory. It captures, does basic editing, encodes, and authors. The key element is always encoding and this has a decent one.

If you want to try to "improve" your old videos, then you need to run filters like those available in TMPGENc and VirtualDub. After experimenting with them for a while on my own 20 year old VHS tapes, I found that they weren't worth the additional time required to encode. You say you've worked with pictures, well you know you can run the noise reducer filter to clean up a picture, but it also makes it a lot fuzzier! Try some real short samples and make sure the results are worth the effort.

You're in luck because you've got great equipment. Be patient and don't be afraid to experiment.

[Pam]

Thank you all again for your help. The fog is starting to clear a little. As in most things, I suspect it will be trying out various programs and seeing what works best for me. Now I can't wait for that Canopus to be delivered!