VHS Tapes to DVD

I have audio and video jacks on both the front and back of my Sony VAIO PC. I successfully captured two video tapes using the software included with the PC, edited them and burned them into DVDs. The item that I burned to a CD using PowerDirector, I imported as one of those kinds of saved files, ie, in the Windows Media Player format. I just can't get PowerDiretor to recognize those same jacks. I'd like to go directly from VHS to MPEG as you indicate I should end up with a better product.

BTW, if you recall, I was able to play the Windows Media file on my Windows Media Player but couldn't run it on anyone else's PC as they said some kind of coding was missing. I now find out that I can't play Real Media files that I had recorded previously on a CD. All it gives is the audio with those screens one gets when playing and audio CD. The Windows Media XP seems to be a little different than regular XP and I don't know if my addition of Windows XP Professional for all my word processing, etc., is adding to the conflicts.
Frank

 

You say you Can capture the audio useing the software that came with the PC so maybe try running that software and looking in it"s settings to see what the audio source is set to and then see if you have the same option in Power Director....
I do not know what the Sony Vaio uses as a Capture device and how it has the Audio Set up So I can not give you specifics about your PC ,Most of my experience is with Capture devices that I had personally installed and most all of them Captured the audio through the sound cards Line in or Mic Port and Most capture software is set up to capture the audio through the sound card, so if there is a Way to use the Line In or Mic ports (Useing an adapter) and them maybe you will be able to get other capture software to capture the audio....

 

It is a weird arrangement. I have to use the remote control to get the software running by selecting My TV. Then I press record on the remote and then using the screen and mouse, press record there. I play the VCR and it captures that as if it were a TV program. I can't see anywhere in the program to tell me what device it is using to capture the video, it just does. With PowerDirector, it won't even recognize those sources. However, it might have something to do with the existing software doing something that doesn't allow that recognition?
Frank

 

Well I found how to select Mpeg2 in PowerDirector 3.0, But the fact that you couldn"t concerns me because you said it would only capture to WMV Format but the Version I have does not capture to WMV it only captures to Mpeg1/2 DivX and AVI those are the Only Capture options...Maybe you should try a different opperateing system or try to Un-install the Capture software on your system because it seems to be interfereing with the regular functioning of your Capture device (Which you have still yet to say what type it is)....

 

The software that came with this system also copies to the WMV format and I am able to use the PowerDirector to convert WMV to MPEG to copy to a CD. It looks like that's the way I'll have to go. Thanks.
Frank
P.S. I don't know how to determine what my capture device is.

 

Well there are a Few Ways to determine what capture device you have ,One if you Just open up your Case and take the Card out and look at it...But it is easier to go to your Device manager which Lists all the Devices on your PC, It will list the capture device and the sound card and all of your Hard drives and every other thing hooked up to your PC....
I allways found it better to Get a custom Built PC as Opposed to a Retail Name Brand PC because you never know what your PC is has in it or how everything is Hooked up and the worst thing about Name brand PC"s Like HP or Dell or Sony ect is that there PC are very Difficult if not impossible to Upgrade, I just tried to upgrade my Moms HP Pavilion PC from an 800mhz to a 2.7ghz and no non HP Parts would Fit in the Case Properly so i ended up have to do a Major Mod on the Case so i could get the Motherboard to fit in the Case, and I has to Mod the PSU because it was in the Way of the Heatsink, but after a Bunch of Cutting and Soldering and a Little Spot welding I was able to get everything very Snugly fit in the case....

If it turs out that the only recourse you have is to Capture to WAV format then when you are Creating your WMV Capture Profile set your Capture resolution at 720+480 and if you can use the Highest Bitrate that they will let you use, and if there is an option in the Frame Rate settings try to set it to 29.976fps and not 30fps because you will have to encode these WMV files to DVD Mpeg2 at 720+480 at 29.976fps and the Little Bit of Frame rate differance from 30fps to 29.976fps can cause a slight jump in the Playback after encodeing to Mpeg2.....

If you ever try Un-Installing the Capture software that you have been useing and are able to capture useing PowerDirector 3 you can simply select Mpeg2 as the capture format by clicking the "Profiles" button in the Capture Section of the Program, and you can create Custom Capture Profiles and PowerDirector does Not have ANY options for captureing to WMV Format....
Good Luck

 

Hello,

I'm working on a VHS to DVD project and would like to know if anyone knows of how to create a theme on Sony's Click to DVD software?

I'm also wondering if anyone has some suggestions as to the best software that is out there. I suspect it is Adobe, but that is way out of my price range.

Last question, where do I get started. I'm really a newbie at this stuff and I don't know what PAL or NTSC is. My head is spinning trying to read all of these posts. Minion, you seem extemely knowledgable in this field. All that I really would like to do is be able to make half way decent DVD's from my Video tapes.

Thanks in advance.

 

Hello!

Just a question on the TV-card's sync to the PAL signal from VHS (I live in Norway which uses PAL):

I have been capturing several VHS records (from TV) lately. Most of this worked fine. When I capture directly from TV it works fine. When I capture from my VHS it works fine if the video was recorded on my own VHS player. I have also been capturing from a VHS casette recorded at another VHS player. That sometimes works, and sometimes not. When it failes I get a frame rate of 12.5 fps (half of PAL) but it can also get as low as 11 fps or as high as 18 fps. If I record for a while, it sometimes stabilizes at 25 fps again, but only to drop again to 12.5 after a short while.

The CPU works around 25% (and never over 50%), and a test of the thoughput of writing to my HDD proves that it works fine, so this do not cause the frame dropping. Btw: I'm using a Pinnacle PCTV with PCI in WinXP.

My theory is that the "problem tapes" is somewhat "heavier" for the motor to operate and causes my VCR to deliver a signal with less/higher frame rate than 25 which causes the TV-card to not be able to sync properly. If I'm running FFW to the end and back again this sometimes helps a bit. I should also mention that it looks ok when I just watch it on the screen and do not capture. As the tapes are not copy protected this could not be the reason either.

Any comments or suggestions on this?

Thanks in advance

 

There are quite a few Reason"s for dropping Frames and it verry rarely has anything to do with the VHS Tape unless the Tape is Really Badly dammaged and even then you Would Capture Bad Frames as opposed to dropping the Frames...
From the Card you are useing you are probably either captureing to AVI or useing Software Mpeg2 compression, Captureing to AVI and Frame Dropping is usually do to the Hard drive not being able to write the Large amount of Video Data , Something on your System could be accessing the Drive while you are captureing in which case you would drop frames..
If you are Planning on doing Full resolution AVI Captures you should allways have a seperate slave Drive just for captureing Video because captureing to the drive your OS and Programs are installed on will cause Dropped Frames because your System must access and read from the Drive at the same time as writeing Video data to the drive and it can not do both at once...If you are useing software Compression Like useing an AVI Codec Like DivX or captureing directly to Mpeg2 then you can drop frames any time the CPU has to do something else becides Compression while captureing ,Like your Ram Manager might start working or your anti-Virus might do something ect,......
When doing a Lot of Capture are the very best quality you should allways have a seperate Fast de-fragmented Drive just for Video Capture and if you are doing Software Compression then shutting down all backround Programs while captureing is a Must and haveing a Very Fast CPU also helps expecially if it has HyperThreading.....
If you are Haveing Problems with the Video Signal you might consider getting a Video Stabilizer, it will Boost the Video Signal and clean it up a bit and best of all it will remove any Macrovision Copy Protection from any VHS Tapes you have that are Copy protected which are most all retail VHS Tapes......well good Luck....Cheers

 

Hello again and thanks for the answer!

I'm 100% shure that the throughput for writing to disk is not the problem. If I capture from a "good" VHS casette, or if I capture directly from TV I don't get any frame dropping!! I have tested this over and over again and it is always the same: For certain casettes I get a lot of frame dropping and from TV or other casettes no frame dropping. Same compression, same resolution. The CPU NEVER works more than 50%. I have watched the system resources as well, and no other programs are interfering. This is quite a mystery to mee...

And I made a test which I ran many times with the same result. I captured without any compression (raw data). With the problem casette I got 12-15 fps, but once i pushed the stop button on the VHS player (but still captured without any interruption) and got a TV channel on the screen it instantly rised to 25.000 fps and stayed at 25 fps as long as I recorded. If I pushed "play" again and watched the record it dropped again to 12-15 fps.

eivindm

 

Well I guess you should capture from Really old Tapes as it seemds that your Card can not handle the Corrupted Frames in the VHS Tape...There is a wierd thing you might try, You can try captureing your Bad Pal Tapes at 12.5fps Interlaced and after you have the Captured file you can use a Type of Filter called a "Bob Deinterlace Filter" ,What it does is take every Interlaced Field into a Progressive Frame which would turn your 12.5fps Interlaced Files into 25fps Progressive Files as each Interlaced Frame has 2 fields and turning each field into a Frame doubles the frame rate....Virtual-Dub has a Filter for this and so does AVISynth and it is a Bit complicated to use but this was only a suggestion....Cheers

 

Thanks again for answering!

I will try this soon. Interresting technique.

But I can mention two things:
- The tapes are 2 weeks old and recorded on a brand new tape

- Everything works fine when capturing in Linux.

Should have tried linux at once. Took some time to make things work (video in linux is a mess), but it was worth the effort.

eivindm

 

Minion:
Through trial and error and many ruined CDs and DVDs, I've been able to edit and burn VHS home movies on both DVDs and CDs. I like to use CDs for smaller clips.

Although I've been able to put chapters in a DVD and have it play on my DVD/CD player, I have not had the same luck with CDs. I am using PowerDirector 3.0 and I put chapters in a short 15 minute video. However, when I try to play it on my DVD/CD player, it just hangs on the menu page. The same clip plays fine without the menu and chaptering. Any ideas on what I'm doing wrond with this SVCD burn?

Also, even on my DVD with chapters, I can't get rid of some default statements on the menu page. When I press start on my burned DVD, it goes to a second menu page that is the initial generic page that I thought I replaced with the one I wanted. (I don't know how it got there.) A second push of the play button starts the DVD playing and the search does work to move to other chapters on the DVD.

Slowly but surely I'm learning this software. I'll have to find DVDR and CDRs on sale as I'm burning a lot of them up in this learning process.

Would it have been wiser to just use a DVD-RW and a CD-RW in the first place until I got a version that was good to keep? How many times can one reburn an RW?
Frank-in-CA

 

Well For the Actual DVD authoring I wouldn"t use Power Director 3.0 ,I use "DVD-Lab" for the Authoring of the Mpeg2 files to DVD and it has awesome Menu Features and every DVD I have made with it has worked out great with no Hangs or Bugs at all...
For adding Chapters to SVCD"s I allways used VCDEasy and never had a problem with it"s Chapters at all...
I can"t help you with your Particular problems because I have never had them But I can tell you what software and methods that worked for me without any problems.....Good luck

 

Minion:
I thought it was you who recommended I use PowerDirector? Now I see other software recommended. I'm confused.

Also, I also forgot to mention another item, when I go to the final stage of rendering and then burning either a DVD or CD, windows starts trying to install my printer, which as far as I know, is not uninstalled. It hangs up 96% complete and I have to go in using the data manager to close that so that it doesn't interfere with my burn that hasn't started yet. There is some weird conflict causing this.
Frank-in-CA

 

I recomended PowerDirector For Video capture Not for DVD authoring....

 

Oh, I thought for all. As you may recall, it won't capture video for me.
Frank

 

Yes, But I recomended it when you were looking for a Video capture Program as I also recomended useing WinDVR 3.0 but you opted for Power Director....I don"t see why you can"t use Power director if you wanted as it seems you have allready been successfull to some degree useing it, I personally only used it for Video capture and had captured pretty good Quality files but I still prefer WinDVR 3.0 for Video capture...
I generally use One program to capture the Video and one Program to author it to DVD if I were to do it the simple way, (but I personally will use upwards of 6-10 different programs when I really am going for the very best quality) which is I guess the way you would like to do it....
The DVD authoring programs I mentioned Like DVD-Lab are free to use for 30 days so you can try it and you like it you can buy it but if you don"t you can try something else for 30 days..You could go on for years this way with all the DVD Authoring Programs there are out there that have 30 day trial version that can be downloaded off the net....

 

Minion:
I can capture VHS tapes using the Windows Media software and I can edit and burn DVDs but I don't seem to have the flexibility DVD-Lab has. However, it doesn't seem to burn SVCDs on a CDR. But I did successfully burn a DVD using PowerDirector. My problem is burning an SVCD with it. PowerDirector will burn an SVCD without any chapters and will work. However, when I select the menu item and break the tape into chapters, it just hangs in the first frame as a still shot and nothing I do will make it work. I've burned various versions and only the non-chaptered one will play on my DVD/CD player. A chaptered version will play on my PC but not on my DVD player. I have been successful in play a chaptered DVD, made using PowerDirector, on my DVD/CD player.

What software do you recommend for burning SVCDs on a CD?
Frank-in-CA

 

When I used to do SVCD"s I usually used VCDEasy...It will add Chapters and you can Make a basic Menu but that is it...VCDeasy does not work with all CD-Burners but if that turns out to be the case you can still use it to Add Chapters and create a Bin/Cue file that you can burn to CD-R useing nero....I don"t know why you are Makeing SVCD"s when you have a DVD Burner because VCD/SVCD"s never seem to play properly on a Consistant Basis, well not for me, and Most movies will have to go on 2 or 3 CD-R"s in SVCD format...You can use DVD-Lab to put SVCD Files on to DVD ,That was what I ended up doing with my 400 movie SVCD Collection because I hated the way they Played when on CD-R and I hated haveing to get up 2 or 3 times per movie to change the disk....good luck