Hi, I saw couple of posting about copying from VHS to PC however, I could not follow. Again, I appologise if it is already posted and answered. I have a nice and strong PC with Firewire card which I use to capture a video from my Sony DV Camcorder to PC. Now the questions is: What else do I need to convert my old VHS tape to VCD or SVCD (Sorry I do not have DVD Burner). I can play the moview which I captured from my camcorder in TV however I missed the trick to capture VHS image to PC so that I can burn as a SVCD.
hi lurray_j I am new at this forum myself, but have spent many tireless hours in your shoes. I take it you are capturing your vhs tapes to your dv camcorder. The next step is to transfer your video from your camcorder through your firewire port. What you will first need to find out before you even make a vcd or svcd is what you plan on playing it on. All dvd players are different and some will only play vcd others svcd and others none. There are many ways to do this, but if you don't want to get into formats like for instance vcd is mpeg 1 format. Two ways you can achieve this are one use tmpge encoder and choose what format you want to encode in and it will encode it. The down side is you will need a secondary software to burn to cd. Since you have a small goal of getting video to vcd the best thing I can recommend is to use nerovision. You select your format and drag your video in and it will encode and burn it to a cd. The only thing I am not sure about is wether it will handle dv format, but it does handle standard avi.
Thanks Kdm for the suggestion. In fact, I am trying to capture the images from VHS to computer directly. As I mentioned earlier, I have a Sony DV450 and I have also Firewire card by which I capture the images to computer using Ulead Basic software which came with Firewire card. I have not thought about capturing from VHS to Hi8 or camcorder and then transfer to PC. I certainly will follow that suggestion. However, is there any way, I can capture directly from VHS to PC through DV camcorder using firewire card without spending huge amount of money?
Hi again Lurray_j I think I know what you are getting at. I have read every thread on this site and many more and have read that passing a video signal through a dv camcorder to a pc through a firewire port is posssible. On the down side you have to check your camcorder manual to see if it supports video pass through. This option allows you to send video through the camcorder with out having to record it to dv tape, hence allowing you to use your camcorder as a capture card. I think this option is only avalible on a few dv camcorders and i think they are high end. Also i searched to find info on sony dv450 and are you sure it is a dv model or is it a hi8mm. I have a sony hi8mm trv118 and it doesn't even have inputs to transfer video to it. If it is a hi8mm model or digital 8mm i am not sure if they are made with this option. Any way your cheapest option to start with would be see if you have video pass through, if not try capturing to your camcorder then to pc through your software. You have to do alot of experimenting and you might want to try otther software if your capture is not great like virtual dub or virtual vcr. If you are looking for cheap alternatives there usually is always a way, but it takes time and trial and error. Remember getting the video to your pc is only half the battle. Then you have encode it, transfer it, create menus and burn it. Also when capturing you have to choose which format to capture to such as avi(dv), mpeg-1(vcd), mpeg-2 (svcd/dvd). They say if your computer can handle it dv avi is the best capture format, but if you use this you will have to rencode into mpeg for vcd or svcd. If this sounds like to much time and work the best thing is to purchase a capture device and since you can only create vcd or svcd's your options are limited and should be rather cost effective. There is no reason for you to buy a instant dvd device or high end capture card with out being able to burn to dvd. I think I saw that there is a instant vcd or svcd capture device that would transfer vhs signal right into vcd or svcd then you burn it to cd done. If I am right they are no more then around $80 to $120 Canadian. It all depends how much your time is worth and if you enjoy messing with video stuff. Also i think it is impossible to capture directly from vhs to firewire without a capture device. At least for the moment who knows what product will be released next week. Hope this answers all your questions and i hope i was in tune with what you are trying to do. kedm
you guys may want to check this guide: http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/musicvideo_guide_part_1_capture.cfm also this one: http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/encode_videos_with_tmpgenc.cfm
Thanks gostisos I have been looking every where for a goog tmpge guide. Now maybe I can explore some new filters and clean up my poor quality video. Your little link goes a long way kedm
Cool kedm, glad I could be of help, you should be able to get a trial version of windvr from download.com, or you could try googling. good luck and feel free to post your progress!!!
hey , everyone I tried win dvr 3.0, virtual vcr and virtual dub and have had hardware compatibility issues with each one. Win dvr 3.0 will not even display a picture, virtual vcr's picture is all garblled and virtual dub will not let me capture any higher than 320x240. Any advice? The only software that seems to work is windows moviemaker 2 and aver tv studio's bundled software, but it only captures into mpeg 1 or 2 and it does the most annoying rhing if you record at 20,000kbs. It splits all files into dvd size pieces (4.13gb). Any ideas of what i should do next? I get the hint that this card does not like avi format. I think i should take this avermedia studio card and jump up and down on it. Any advice on a good capture device and where to purchase it. Minion mentioned canopus advc 50. Do you think if i get a different capture card i will run into the same software issues. Thanks, Kedm Oh. on an up note i did purchase a video stabilizer off of ebay, so i hopr that will help. Thanks
Mega sorry everyone disregard last post i was on the wrong forum sorry for accidentally hijacking. Is there any way to remove your mistaken posts?
Thanks everyone who contributed your time to suggest for different options. I am a normal user and does not have time (also money) to spend on this (I have a 4 months old baby and busy to feed him, changing a diaper so and so forth). Anyway, I followed Kedm's suggestion and copied from VHS to camcorder and transfered to PC in MPEG format. It looks like good images when I played in my DVD player. Thanks again.
