Hello All :>) I sure could use some advice/info from those of you with hands on experience. For some years I was the principal Video photographer for important milestones in our only child's life & for both sides of our fairly large families. I also took much footage of loved ones no longer with us including my Mom & brother. All these precious memories are within dozens of VCR tapes. During this time I rarley used a regular camera as I was caught up in the magic of Video. It is for all these priceless tapes that I seek you help/advice for. I must some how transfer these tapes to DVD soon or lose them forever. I thought about sending them out to be copied to DVD but we just have too many & it would be too expensive. We are a one income famly as my husband has severe spinal problems. I also thought about using my PC to solve this problem. I even have a brand new Pioneer DVD burner. I figured this way I cold even edit my work! Unfortunately when I looked into this possibility, I was informed my PC is too old & too slow to accomplish what I need. You can see my PC info at the end of the page. I then looked into tivo which really sounds fabulous but as much as tivo has to offer my family above & beyond the basic need we have, I have a big doubt. Although we could squeeze the money for the recorder it's self, the monthly payments or even the one time usage payment would just be too much for us. I do wonder though. Is it possble for tivo to copy & edit the tapes without additonal cost of the service. If so then I could copy & edit the tapes now & as soon as we could aford it we could pay the one time fee of $300 or so. This way we could save our memories & my family would have added entertainment for our money. Can any tivo owners please tell me lf this is a possibility for us? Then I have been looking at regular DVD recorders but am so confused. What recorder has what we need & is simple enough for a newbie to use without ruining these priceless tapes? I am way open for any sugestions, info or ideas from you kind people who have any answers or options for us. Also thoseof you who have the luxury of owning & using a recorder for long enough to be certain of the reliability, simplicity of use & ease of editng. MY PC INFO: Dell Dimension XPS Pentium 3, 598 MHz , 384 RAM, a 80 GB & a 20 GB HARD DRIVE, with Win XP Thank you for you valuable time, Melly & Family :>)
buy yourself an external tv capture card. the capture card comes with software and the cables, so you don't have to buy cables. The one you should by ismade by mecer.
Thanks so much for your time :>) This Video Capture card sounds great but I was told that my PC is too slow to go this route. Did you see my PC specs? Am I missing something? Is there really some hope of editing & saving VCR tapes to DVD using my PC???
Melly, There is a nice easy solution that I am using for similar purposees. However, it is still little pricy, so if anyone has other recommandations for Melly, please keep replying. I purchased Panasonic DMR-E500H DVD recorder. Not onlly it burns DVDs but it also has a built in huge hard drive 400GB (up to 700 hrs or recording). It works just like your VCR, very easy to use and to hook up. You can copy all your tapes, organize them, edit them, etc... and then start burning DVDs. The only draw back is that the unit is listed for $999, but the price just went down to $600, making it worth every penny! I did a lot of converting of old home movies to DVDs using my computer (very powerful one too!), but still it required way too much time - I bet most working people will give up using this method if they have many tapes. Just very time consuming.
Melly, I click reply before I was done, sorry. One more thing. See what it will cost you to convert your tapes to DVDs, but I bet you can pay for this Panasonic unit in no time for that money. Otherwise, buy yourself an AVS Pyro A/V link. It's about $100, but I got one on ebay for $50. It will let you hook up your VCR to your computer for recording. First to your hard drive and then to your DVDs. Your computer can handle this unit... but it will be time consuming!
* * Hello Jerry :>) I envy you. Your Panasonic DMR-E500H DVD recorder sounds like a dream! After reading your post I counted my pennies but no matter how I count them I couldn't even come close to the $600.00 mark :>( I can't help but wonder about the possibility of a refurbished unit like yours though I doubt I will find it in my price range eiher. Anyway, thanks to you I now know more about what I need so I can at the very least try to get as close to it as I can. I received $245.00 for my birhday. The most I can afford now is $300.00 and that includes shippng expenses. Thank you Jerry for your time and kndness :>) Melly
Melly, If you want to spend up to $300, you should be able to find several models of DVD recorders with hard drives. Rememebr, that you do not need a huge hard drive. Even 120GB is plenty! Whatever you transfer from your vcr tape to that hard drive, you edit, and then move to a DVD, then you free up your hard drive for more tapes. Also, you can burn directly to the DVD, so the hard drive becomes optional - only if you want to do some editing before writing to a dvd disc. You can fin good DVD burners for about $200 brans new, and good DVD burners with hard drives for about $300. Think about it, it's worth it Good luck.
I have a good enough Pc with an ATi capture card which I use from three years transferring old VHS tapes. Several days ago I bought A DVD recorder the Pioneer DVR-530H-s with 80Gb of HDD. Wow man..! Th difference in captured quality is noticeable specially in poor non original VHS's. It will let you copy from HD to DVD will high speed among many others features. It has all I need in features and the convenient NTSC/PAL play and Record also. The only bad thing was the 80Gb model instead of the 160Gb that I payed and ordered from 'world-import' website. There were incompetent and vulgar people in contact online. In your case ($300) I will suggest a lower model like Pioneer DVR-320-S DVD Recorder. In a fast search I found it here but you could search in more places like: http://www.bizrate.com/marketplace/product_info/details__cat_id--11530000,prod_id--136589423.html Its Price Range: $249 to $349 . Try to read as many reviews that you can before deciding just don't deal at http://www.world-import.com Bad people there. Good luck in your difficult decision.
I have the ATI all in wonder video card in my computer running windows 98, and it does a great job capturing video from a camera or vhs or other dvd players and recorders. If you can spring for the money Wal_mart right now has a DVD recorder and vhs recorder in the same cabinet for $179.00. This would simplify the process. Just put your vhs tape in the machine and record to DVD. I'm not sure it it use the + or the - blank dvd's, but they can tell you at the store. And you have 30 days to copy your vhs to DVD without risk. If it doesn't do like you wont you can return with in 30 days and get you money back. hope this helps LPK
[Melly] First -- Your PcC is OK and will do the job/ Ive been the PC route and believe me a good stand alone DVD recorder with good edit features and HDD will beat a PC for what you want. [Look for a unit with good edit features and a hard drive] I have an Ilo DVDRHD04, made by LiteOn . For my use I wouldn't have any other. The Ilo 04 is no more. but the LiteOn is. The Pioneer is recomended by many, so is the JVC, Panasonic and others. look around these fourms for comments. Second -- a DVD stand alone or in a PC will not ruin your tapes, only a Bum VCR can.
* * You all are the greatest! I am not missing one word of your advice. I do not plan on choosing till I feel informed and comfortable with my choice. I am looking into the DVRs recomended by you all and will let you all know all the details before I make my purchase. Pleae know that none of you are wasting your timeon me as I am gratefully learning so much from you all :>) Thank you for you valuable time, Meliy :>)
Please take my advice: BUY A STANDALONE DVD RECORDER! Please. You will be wasting alot of time and money on a PC video card. Even if you could transfer to PC, the time per 1-hour to encode to DVD would be 3 hours minimum from start to finish excluding editing time. This does not include the learning curve to be proficient in editing software like Pinnacle Studio 9 or Adobe Premiere (which isn't free either). Anyone who suggests someone who isn't in the video editing profession, with mediocre PC resources, and LOTS of tapes to convert to use the PC route is wrong. Take my word. I've been there, done that. I must have posted 100 times my vow never use the PC route again, especially since you can buy a cheap DVD recorder for $150 these days. A decent video card to do that already costs $150, and I doubt the results would be as nice. The only reason I went with the VCR to PC Studio 8 route a few years ago was because DVD recorders were $800 and up. I am telling you now: SAVE YOURSELF THE TIME AND MONEY AND JUST BUY A DVD RECORDER!!! I suggest the Sony GX300 for $230 at Crutchfield with $20 coupon: http://www.mastercard.com/us/specialoffers/savings_discounts/crutchfield.html Anyone who even questions my reasoning, please speak up. I will tear you a new one. I cannot stress how much pain and suffering I went through using the PC route. And you can always buy PC software to edit your DVDs!!!
Sorry, but my blood boils when people suggest PCs over standalone DVD recorders, especially these days. Forget the PC. I just looked at your PC specs. You will not be even close to being able to produce a DVD with it. Never mind the slow P3 processor, but the hard drive space is tiny for video editing. It's at least 4GB per hour of recorded video...in MPEG. In AVI, it's more like 15GB. And you should have at least 2 hard drives, one dedicated for video. All you'll get is alot of freezes and choppy video. Like I said, you just want to archive them before your tapes turn to dust. With a PC, your grandkids will be finishing up your mission to convert to DVD. Back to DVD recorders. Look for the burning formats. Make sure it can write to all of them for maximum flexibility. +RWs, -RWs, +Rs, -Rs. Newer models have dual-layer capability too. Avoid Panasonic which only supports the outdated and proprietary DVD-RAM format and maybe -R only. As for DVD recorders with hard drives, I'm not fond of them. True, they give you better editing features like being able to edit the video before recording to a DVD, but they suffer from alot of wear and tear because they are always recording even when you are watching regular TV. (This allows you to rewind a regular TV program.) If you are on a tight budget, you may want to just get the recorder to transfer to DVD first. Then if you have time later or get a new PC, there's video editing software that lets you edit a DVD.
[DogBomb] I have an ilo DVDRHD04 with hack [has HDD] My PC [OS 98] that I use for DVD is almost exactly as Melly has except it has Plll-800. I Have used this machine at 400 mhz and over clocked at 1.2 gz. I've also used an older, MV free, capture card for quite some time. I can make a DVD on it and its not that slow. As I've said in a prior post I feel that the stand alone recorder is much, much easier. Dont't sell a PC short there are many things you can do with a PC and not with A stand alone. [at least at present]. A Recorder with HDD has a lot over one without Not just in edit. Wear and tear. I don't know what you mean by always recording when watching TV, or the rewind comment. If I'm not using it for recording while watching TV I turn it off. Even on standby its not recording if I don't want it to. The HDD in a computer is running with the PC on [Melly] Get a standalone unit. I like the LiteOn products for my purpose. There are some good machines out there. Many like the Panasonic and they do suport other media besides DVD-RAM
* * Hello everyone :>) I AM CONVINCED! The majority of you say Recorder. I will take your advice gladly & thankfully. I am well awaare experience is the best teacher & you all certainly have all I need. DogBomb Ya knocked my socks off LOL! Thank you all so very much for your time, kindness & concern. I'm off to find my new Recorder. Melly ;>)
Hi Melly, I bought the Sony GX300 DVD recorder a while back, mostly to transfer VHS recordings to DVD like you want to. I'm finding it to be an excellent machine (fantastic image quality!), and the price is now under $250. This does NOT have an internal hard drive, which won't be a problem if you don't plan to do extensive editing (you can edit stuff out easily enough just buy hitting the "Pause recording" button like you would on a VCR). And in case you haven't learned it already, since you're obviously concerned with keeping your recordings safe and useful for many years to come, it's EXTREMELY IMPORTANT to record onto quality blank DVDs. Lower quality DVD media literally starts to disintegrate within a year. A general rule of thumb: look on the package before you buy, and if it says it was manufactured in Japan or Singapore, then it's likely to be good stuff. If it says manufactured in Tiawan or Hong Kong, put it back on the shelf. Maxell and TDK are considered good. Memorex is not. Good luck.
* * Hello jjkdc :>) Thanks for taking the time. Your DVD Recorder sounds great & right in my price range. you are correct I do plan to use the DVD recorder I purchase to transfer VHS recordings to DVD only. I have some questions & I hope you don't mnd answering them. How long have you had your recorder & have you been using it a good bit? Do the DVD's play ok on your PC & your DVD player? Thanks for the wise warning but yes I am already aware of the importance of using th best possble quality DVDs for my perecious memories. Thanks again jkdc for your advice. Melly :>)
I bought it as Christmas, but didn't get around to serious recording with it until about a month ago. I've made maybe a dozen DVDs so far, and I've gotten only one coaster so far (which turned out to be my fault, not the player's). I've recorded onto DVD-Rs, and once finalized I've been able to play them flawlessly on both another DVD player I have, plus my computer. It's critical to remember to "finalize" the disc first in order to be able to play these discs on other players.
I bought a 100-pack of DVD+RWs for $30 at Newegg and only use them for my Sony GX300. You don't even need to finalize DVD+RWs to use on other players. And if I want to keep the recording permanently, I just use my PC to burn onto a DVD+R.
