VHS Tapes to DVD

Speaking of TigerDirect, Has anyone had any experience with the ADS DVD Express video capture box they sell there? It claims to be able to capture Mpeg-2 and burn it to DVD using a USB port and a single software package for Capture, editing, and authoring (Video Studio 7 SE).

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=580965&Sku=A03-7042

This simply sounds too good to be true at under $100.00.

Has anyone used either the ADS Video Express and/or Video Studio 7 SE?

Will this divice/combination eliminate Macrovision?

bob

 

hey guys I need some help or advice. I am capping to a seperate disk dedicated to just that I have a 2.4 gig processer and 1 gig of mem. Does anybody think that when they view their dvd they created that it gets kind of blurry when you have alot of movement? It could be me because I am always looking for little imperfections. It was a show I copied from tv with my Winfast TV 2000 expert card if this helps with anybodys input. Also if anybody is using this card beware mine went out about a month ago and prevented my computer from doing a POST, however Leadtek replaced it promptly and with little trouble. If anybody can help me thanks in advance especially you Minion I am sure you have an idea. Thanks again mbanx

 

mdl3r1: WoW Lots of Questions But I"ll try to answer most of them....

The Canopus ADVC-100 Supposedly has a way to disable the Macrovision Detection but from some poeple I have talked to who have purchased one of the Newer Modells they say that the Disable Macrovision feature has been removed from the ADVC-100, which isn"t really that big of a Deal because a standard Video Stabilizer will remove the macrovision and it will actually Improove the Image Quality because it Stabilizes the Video signal, you can get them for less than $30...
The Canopus ACEDVio can actually be found for qulite a Bit cheaper than the ADVC-100, I have seen them on e-bay for as Low as $169 US....

You can not use Mpeg-4 for Createing DVD"s...Mpeg-4 is actually an AVI Format so it can not be used for Standard DVD"s only Mpeg2 and rarely Mpeg1...There are Specific DVD Players that Have support for Playing Mpeg-4 files and WMV files but these Players aren"t very common and you can not make interactive Menu"s and such Like with Regular DVD"s...

Yes you can use Premier 6 to capture Video from a DV Camcorder or from an ADVC-100 or ACEDVio but Premier is Not meant for editing Mpeg2/Vob files and it will not handle the AC3 audio that is used in Most DVD"s...
If she weally wants to edit the Files off of the DVD shen will Have to demux the AC3 audio from the Vob files and decode it to Wav format and then use the Mpeg2 Video as the Video stream for editing and use the Wav audio for the audio track in Premier...
When she is Done editing and wants to render her Project so she can put it back on to DVD she can either use one of the Premier Mpeg encoder Plugins or she can render the Project as a Low compression AVI file and then use a High Quality Mpeg encoder to encode the File to Mpeg2 for DVD...The Problem comes in when trying to render the audio back to Dolby AC3 because there are very few AC3 encoders on the Market and they are expensive But she doesn"t have to use Dolby AC3 she can use Mpeg1 Layer 2 audio.....

As for finally createing the DVD you must use a DVD authoring program because Premier does not author DVD"s...If you are only going to use One Language Track and no subtitles then I would recomend useing something like "DVD-Lab" for authoring the DVD because it is easy to use and it can make a DVD as simple or as Complicated as you wish....Well I hope I answered Most of your questions, If you need anymore help Just let me know....Cheers

 

Hi everyone- I'm new to all this and just purchased a Sony 530ul burner. I want to transfer my old VHS tapes to DVD and am considering the Dazzle DVC150, but not sure if it's a good one or if I can find something comparable for a better price out there. Anyone can steer me in the right direction I would really appreciate it before I spend $ on something I find I can't use.

I have a Dell Inspiron 8100 (laptop) P-III 1G, 512MB of RAM, 19GB of free HDD, running XP Pro. Thanks in advance.

 

SO far, I've converted 40 hours of VHS tapes to MPEG DVD using a TBC-1000 timebase corrector plus an ADVC-100 converter. The results are very good. Some of the tapes that were recorded off-the-air are of color movies of the late 30s and early 40s. The originals used for the broadcast must have been very old because the colors are off. On one the skin tones are very yellowish and on another the color saturation is 'way too high.

Is there a method that I can use to correct for these shortcomings without spending a kilobuck on software?
Thanks!

 

To tell you the truth your system isn"t really good for Video capture and DVD authoring.....You only have 19gb of Free space and that is only about 1 hour 15 minutes of Video in DV AVI format so that is definately not enough space and your drive space should allways be on a seperate dedicated Fast hard drive or you will Drop Frames while Captureing ,so your only other option is to Capture directly to Mpeg2 DVD format but your CPU isn"t fast enough to Capture full resolution Mpeg2/DVD as you need about 2.0ghz to Capture at Full resolution Mpeg2.....
I wouldn"t get any Dazzle Product because Dazzle doesn"t exist anymore cuz it was bought out by Pinnacle which is another Crappy Hardware Manufacturer, There are Inherant problems with the Dazzle DVC 150 like most noteably are the Rampant Sync problems with that device....
With the system you have right now your Only Viable Option is to get a hardware Mpeg encoder device which pretty Much of all of them Suck pretty Bad unless you are willing to spend $300+ on something like the "Canopus MpegPro" USB 2.0 device, You can not use USB 1.1 for Mpeg2/DVD Capture because there isn"t enough Bandwidth....
So I am afraid that if you are not willing to upgrade then you are S.O.L when it comes to Captureing Video to make DVD"s....good Luck

Mbanx: I think your Blurring is Caused from Interlaceing, the only way to remove it is to use a De-interlace Filter when Captureing and if you can"t while captureing then you will have to use a De-interlace filter when you are Encodeing your Captured File to Mpeg2 for DVD....Cheers

 

Hey Minion thanks alot,would you recommend Virtual VCR or V-Dub or does it really even matter? If you have time could you explain briefly the diff between interlacing and de-int?
Thanks alot

 

It is actually better to de-interlace when encodeing to Mpeg not while Captureing...I would recomend Virtual-VCR for AVI capture because it is Compatible with more Capture Devices....

NTSC Video is Made up of Fields, and each Frame has 2 Fields with each Field holding the Video Information of 1/2 of a frame, so 30fps Video is actually 60 Fields Per sec, and the Interlace artifacts you are seeing are the Spaces between each field which causes Blurring in High Motion scenes..This actually should not show up on your TV set only on your Monitor because your Monitor does not Displat Interlaced Video properly but your TV set does but sometimes you can still see it on your TV set...What de-interlaceing does is depending on the Type of De-Interlace filter is it either Drops one Field per second so you don"t see the artifacts or it will Blend Both Fields together into One Frame...
Understanding how Interlaceing works is a very important aspect of understanding Digital video as a whole...
Here are a Couple Links about Interlaceing and De-interlaceing that you and every body should read if they want to understand how Interlaced Video is Made up...

http://www.puremotion.com/editstudio/manual/interlacedvideoexplained/

http://www.puremotion.com/editstudio/manual/whatisdeinterlacing/index.htm

Cheers

 

Thanks again Minion

 

Thanks for your response Minion. So if I were to do anything would you recommend I get an external HDD and plug it into my laptop or just get a whole new desktop, and if the desktop is the answer, then what should I make sure it has? Frankly, I just have my wedding video tapes and some movies that I would like converted to DVD, so nothing really huge (like Hollywoodish). I guess I was looking for a fast and painless way to get the few tapes done.

 

burning2: What I would recomend is if you only have a few Tapes that you want to transfer to DVD is to go out and get a Standalone DVD Recorder and use it for a couple Days and transfer all the Tapes you have and then take the DVD Recorder back to the store for a Refund , That way you get all of your Video Material Transfered to DVD and it really doesn"t cost you anything accept a few Blank DVD-R"s....And if you wanted to edit the footage and add menu"s and Chapters you can just transfer the Material to your Laptop and edit it and re-author it to DVD......

 

While I don't doubt your ability and knowledge
on video transfers and DVDs and such Minion, I don't see why you rave about Canopus so often. Even the process you describe.... "capture to AVI then convert to MPEG2 using Canopus" is a waste. The quality issues
you speak of are minute! It is much easier to capture VHS tapes to MPEG2. I'm using Winfast PVR which came with my Winfast TV 2000 XP capture card, to capture
VHS. Then I use Cyberlink's Power Director to do the editing and burning. The Canopus converts to a video and an audio [wav] files seperately. But it does not
recognize WAV files. Why this is who knows? Maybe you.
You have to stitch the two files together during the
convert process. Then if you edit the video the audio stays the same length and causes sync problems. I'm no
expert at all, but my way seems much easier. No editing
WAV and video files. No B.S. and no astronomical price.
Keep the good info coming. Your ideas are very good and I enjoy and am helped by your thoughts. Bye.

 

Hi all, - as usual, question for Minion:
Surely you've heard of this little device; the KWorld Xpert DVD Maker. It sounds too good to be true, or too basic to be any good quality transfer of VHS to DVD. It boasts it can direct encode to DVD...what are they leaving out of their ad..the truth?
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=15-100-112&depa=0

Also, thnaks for your previous answers to me on 12 May at 16:47; I have a couple more specific ones, but am too tired and its late work ealry tomorrow.
Thanks!

 

Thanks for your time Minion! I'm surprised I never thought I doing that...knowing my personality that is I will definitely have to do just that.

 

Billjr: You odviously don"t own a Canopus Device cuz if you did you would know that the Quality differances between Captureing with one of these devices and encodeing to Mpeg2 useing a High Quality encoder Is FAR superior than Captureing directly to Mpeg2 useing Real time software compression with a $50 TV Card...It"s Like the Differance between VHS and DVD or the Differance between a Honda and a Porche...One you go High Quality you will never go back.....
And no Canopus Doesn"t capture to seperate audio and Video files it captures to a High Quality DV AVI format and all of there devices have a Patended Audio Lock process that locks the audio and Video in the DV stream so there is no chance of Sync problems pluss it inbeds the time code into the audio and Video stream to make sure it never goes out of Sync on playback....
Captureing directly to Mpeg2 useing a software Capture program is extremely Lossy that is why you have to use such a High Capture Bitrate to achieve good Quality so you end up with a Good Looking Mpeg2 file but you can only fit about 60-90 minutes on a DVD, Useing the other method you can fit twice that with Higher Quality because in the First Place the Analoge Digital conversion is Not very Lossy and a High Quality standalone encoder when configured properly is twice as efficent with Bitrate than the best mpeg2 capture program Capture program is which means you can get the same quality useing half the Bitrate...Pluss Mpeg isn"t a Good format to capture to if you want to do any editing or add effects and Titles because the Video has to be re-encoded when adding effects which again lowers the quality...But that all said you can use a Canopus Device to capture to Mpeg2 in real time the same way you do with a TV Card..I don"t think spending $200 on a Professinal quality device is that Much considering a compareable device made my Matrox or Pinnacle would cost 3 times that much....
For most poeple though a TV card with a 10bit decoder is perfect for Captureing Video and for poeple who aren"t looking for a Broadcast quality VHS to PC transfers I recomend getting a Simple TV card because the good ones do produce exceptional quality and I have made many posts recomending TV cards to poeple on a Budget but I NEVER recomend USB Devices....

mdl3r1: I have looked tat that device before and it is Not a Hardware encoder it uses software that comes with the Card to compress the signal to Mpeg1/2 ,I would not recomend you get it, as you will notice most of the reviews there were written by the same person...I would allways recomend PCI over USB because PCI has a Much larger Bandwidth to transfer Video signals....My first Capture device about 4 years ago was a USB Device made by Hauppaggue and It was total Crap and since then I have tried Many others and was never satisfied with the results so if you can get a PCI TV Card over a USB one and you can get a Good PCI TV Card for about the same price as that USB device some even cheaper if you Look arround....Cheers Folks

 

Does anyone have any suggestions about how to correct the color saturation and color balance of some of the videos that I've converted from VHS to DVD?
Thanks!

 

Minion,
You are absolutely right. I don't have a Canopus device. Only the Canopus software installed on my PC.
It cost so damn much I did'nt dream of buying a whole device. The software was $500. Also, I said the Canopus
"converted" to two files. Not captured. Any ideas where
I can purchase the Canopus device. If not, please give
me the actual name and model of the $200 unit you mentioned. I'll try to find it. Thanks.
Later.

 

Ok,I think I'm beginning to get a the "big picture" in very basic terms. Minion, thanks for your answers;
1)I agree; the way to go is to not get USB: the bandwidth is too low/not to be compared with PCI device. Next level, as for a TV Card vs. a better video capture card, we'll definitely need a Canopus-type: I like the fact it locks in the audio and video together to eliminate the sync issues of taking analog to digital format, into avi instead of MPEG, for better quality in editing and final product.
So, let me ask you a little more specific now:
2) Considering we need to edit my wife's DVD shows, and talk is the producer may send us future footage via Cable/Broadband/satellite cable (or something like that), which Canopus Video capture device (ADVC-100 or ACEDVio-best "Buy it now" price is 225+shpng; bidding can be a hassle/disappointing sometimes) would you think will let us do best what we'll need: receive such input as well as analog from VCR & VHS Camcorder(not DV cam)?
Also, how do we get input to PC from DVD she gets; play on DVD burner and rip directly off?

You said before, to edit off her DVD's, I understand basically what you mean, about demuxing the VOB files (off the DVD she has, right?)
down into audio and video.
3)So, For editing the audio stream, I'll need to take the Dolby AC3 and decode to wav format, bc Premier does not handle Dolby ac3. But then, you say the problem is to encode wav back to AC3..few and expensive encoders you said...so is the alternative you suggested, using MPEG1 Layer 2 Audio, semi-equivalent/good enough to mux it back up with the edited MPEG2 video stream to create the edited VOB files, to then author the editd DVD show?

4)Videowise, you said to use the MPEG2 video stream to edit; do I not need to decode to avi, then back to MPEG2? I guess if we have quality MPEG2 video footage already, we can use in that format "as is"?

Thanks again in advance; the process is coming together...

 

mdl3r1: Hi, It sounds like you have a Big project comeing up?? As for what Device you get depends on the features you want and if you need to have an Internal device or an external device...

The ADVC-100 and the ACEDVio use the same DV Compression Chip and Audio Lock Features so they will both Produce the same Sort of Quality accept the ADVC-100 plugs into a firewire Port on your PC and the ACEDVio Plugs into a PCI Port on your PC..They both have DV Firewire and Analogue S-Video and Composite Inputs ,They Both also have an Analoge Output so you can Plug an external TV Monitor into it so you can Preview your Video Material on an Interlaced TV as opposed to a Progressive PC monitor....

If you have a PC as opposed to a Laptop and will not be useing the device on more than one PC then the ACEDVio might be better and you do not need a seperate Firewire Port to use it.....

As for how you get video off of a DVD to your PC you Just Rip the Video to your Hard drive and you can use a Mpeg/Vob editor to cut out the parts you want to use in your project....

It seems that you have understood Pretty much everything I treid to explin in my posts, Like you are right about haveing to decode the Audio in the Vob files to wav format for editing in Premier and you do not have to Convert the Video to AVI because Premier will accept Mpeg2 Video files and let you edit them as if they were AVI files....
As for the audio when you render your Project, There are different 4 audio formats that can be used as the audio on a DVD, they are Wav(LPCM), Mpeg1 Layer 2 ,Dolby AC3, and DTS...You don"t want to use Wav because it is an uncompressed audio format so it will take up huge amounts of space on the DVD ,AC3 or DTS are the Best but there aren"t many Programs that support that format yet, so you are Left with Mpeg1 Layer 2 which is about as good as MP3 audio so it isn"t bad....
I do all my editing in Vegas Video which has a Dolby AC3 encoder so it comes in handy plus it has a very good quality Mpeg2 encoder....
You are also going to need a DVD authoring Program if you don"t allready have one.....

PS: There are also other More expensive Models like the Canopus ADVC-300 and the ADVC-500 which incluse features Like Digital Noise Filter and Image stabilization and Time baced Correctors which greatly improove the Quality when captureing from Old degraded footage....

Well if you have any more quastions I"ll be more than happy to help out if I can.....Cheers

drwatson: You should be able to Adjust the Brightness,Contrast,Saturation ect in your Capture program, and if you capture to AVI you can adjust these settings in the encoder when you are encodeing the AVI files to Mpeg2....

Billjr: I have seen the "Canopus ACEDVio" on E-Bay for as Low as $169 and I have seen the "Canopus ADVC-100" for as low as $225 on e-bay, There are other Models like the ADVC-50 and ADVC-55 that are Cheaper and do the same thing accept they have a few less features but should produce simular Quality... Cheers

 

Minion,
I saw the Canopus ADVC-100 for $225 on NewEgg.com.
No bidding hassles there. Thanks.