VHS Tapes to DVD

For the past year, have been using windv with my advc 100 for capturing from vhs and camcorder, and using tmpgenc plus for encoding (vbr 4000-6000-8000). Also read a little in this post on windvr, tmpgenc express, and others. Just wondering, is there any reason for me to convert or upgrade to any of these newer programs or versions? What are the newer features I may be missing out on?

I am a little concerned about how the audio may be encoded in my current process. I am encoding audio and video into one mpeg file, rather than separate. I guess you could say I want to make sure I am getting optimal compression with good quality in my videos.

Let me know what other questions you might have on my setup.

 

Minion - have you used double layer DVD's for recording movies?

 

Hi ,No I haven"t used them because they are Way too Expensive at between $10 to $15 each were I live Compared to about 0.25c each for DVD5"s and I have never had a problem fitting a DVD9 on to a DVD5....

Cheers

 

I have used +R DL media with my Sony DRU-700A burner (which I have just replaced with the newer DRU-710A). Using DL media allows me to copy a 2+ hour VHS tape to DVD with little or no video compression (I do, however, compress the 2-channel audio with Dolby AC-3 encoding).

Getting reliable media seems to be a problem. First I tried a 3-pack of PIODATA media, and two out of 3 were bad. At $10 per DVD, this was an expensive lesson. Then I found on the Sony web site (sony.storagesupport.com) that as of 5/14/04 Sony was only recommending Verbatim DVD+R DL media. So I tried three Verbatim DVDs, and all three burned OK and could be viewed with my Sony DVD player. One of the DVDs appeared to have a "flakey" spot when it was being viewed, but after a slight pause the player continued OK. (I think the pause was too long to be caused by switching to the 2nd layer.)

Anyway, I'm hoping the price of DL comes down, and also that more info on its reliability becomes available.

 

Hi Minion, I'm a new reader and I'm really impressed by the thoroughness of your replies. I'm glad I found this forum. I'm going to quote a message from page 4 of the thread which relates to my question.


Machie wrote:
"...I also have some movies that have poor video quality & believe it may be caused by Macrovision. The video is good VCR to TV, but poor VCR to computer. The picture has a white, unstable line at the top of the screen, & the picture jumps intermittently. Would this be caused by Macrovision? I am using the ATI TV application, composite connection to view it...

I have the same problem, same symptoms, perfect playback to TV, although I'm using the analog input. The main difference here is that I'm using a GOVIDEO dual deck DDV9550, which has built-in Macrovision removal. And the tapes I'm recording are home movies, recorded fresh (like twelve years ago) on blank, consumer VHS tapes at "SP."

So perhaps the macrovision removal on the deck isn't perfect enough to withstand the finicky-ness of digital media...but why would it matter on a home video?

If you have any idea, I'd be fascinated to hear it. Regardless, however, you mentioned a patch for the ATI All-In-Wonder capture that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. I'm more than willing to freshly reinstall my entire system to give it a fair shot, because this is sort of important to me. If you can remember (or are just a better internet researcher than I am), could you post a link to this patch? It would be very much appreciated.

 

If these VHS tapes are Home recorded ones then there is No chance there is any copy protection at all so I"m sure that is not Your Problem....

There will usually allways Be a Line of Distortion on the Bottom of the Captured Video because this is from were the Head on the Tape Deck makes contact with the Tape , It is allways there but you can not see it on your TV set because your TV set has a 10% to 15% Overscan area arround the whole Frame that Cuts off any artifacts arround the edges.....

Maybe you will have better results if you used a Different Capture program like Maybe WinDVR 3.0 or some other Program....
What type of Capture device are you useing ?? I know it is probably ATI VGA/Capture combo like an All in wonder but which one useing which capture Chipset??

 

I have the All-In-Wonder 9000 Pro - not sure if this will tell you what chipset it's using.

I have since noticed a tame version of the same thing happening on one professional tape I have. But as you said, there is no reason this would be related to macrovision. I have also unwittingly tried a somewhat scary "patch" which replaced all of my drivers. Everything still works, but nothing has changed.

Oh, and I'm aware of what you're talking about on the bottom - not the static I mean...

 

I have AMD1.8Ghz PC with windows 2000 and via KT333CF-8235 chipset with on board sound controller.

Recently I added Philips PCI capture SAA 7130 and I can see the cable TV perfectly with sound.

I captured some avi files using tv capture and also nero vision express(mpeg?). But when I re-play avi or preview nero capture files I can not hear any audio.

I tried verifying with gspot for avi files. Gspot says audio track is present with pci encoding and it shd play OK. I also tried VSO divxtodvd tool to modify. During rendering with avi or nero files, this tool diagnostic data says it has audio stream but I can not hear a thing. In re-play or burnt disk.

Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks.

NP

 

Minion, anyone, I assembled several home video clips, edited, added titles and transitions - all in MovieMaker2 and saved as a DV-AVI(NTSC) file. Everything is fine. However, I noticed an error in my titles (I put one in the wrong place) and want to correct it without having to do the whole process of importing and sequencing the clips, and doing the titles and transitions over, plus spend the system time (3 hours) to save it all again. Is there a quicker way to edit the MM2 DV-AVI output file without losing any quality?

Still learning. Thanks.
JoeP

 

Hello and seasons greetings to all.

i read the 20 or so pages on this thread last night and like all the newbies i am most impressed, especially with god, whoops i mean minion..

i have a challenge for the top brains, something that you must promise you will laugh quietly about...

myself and several other friends live in this other world..

its one that still has bx motherboards, less than 1ghz processors and the sad owners of these antiques want to feel useful and creative like the other guys and gals here on thise thread..

sooo .. we were wondering if you could take pity on us poverty ridden (child laden) folk and stretch your imaginations and creative minds so we might be able to show off to some of our friends????

i have an asus p2bl motherboard with i gig of memory, a celeron 667 overclocked to 791 or there-abouts with a 4 meg video card a hp cd writer and a brand new lite on dvd burner.

i just bought the family a cheap samsung video camera (hi8) and would really love to be able to produce some low level dvd's to send to nanna in south australia etc....

now come on guys get up off the floor and have some respect... you can do damage laughing that hard..

so far i have managed to get some video into the computer via one of two cards i had laying around for a while. one is an aver media mv-300 (bt866 chipset) and the other is a tv/fm radio capture card from a mob called medialand. (it has a bt878 chipset).

now i have to tell you that after not going to bed at all last night.. and i am still sitting here... i am quite pleased with the actual quality of the very small avi files i eventually got on to the computer (windows me) stop it... i like me..and the operating system..

most of my time was taken up reading this and other posts relating to vhs and dvd's in general. a large chunk of time was wasted trying to find drivers to make these confounded cards work in me.

none of the commercial software would work. the latest just doesnt recognise hi8 type outputs via the svideo cable (i cant even think about video to digital adaptors etc) . the commercial stuff was also too much of a burden on the fralllll system.

but hey... i eventually got some video on to the hard disk via a freeware package called "Capture Studio 4.05 Professional".

the quality was more than satisfying to my eyes and my 4 year old daughter wants to know when she can have a cd to put in her computer....

so guys.. and gals.. what do you say??? can you come up with some lightweight software that will help me get this video material onto dvd's or cd's that i can distribute to friends and family??

i would really love to be able to get my teenage kids interested in this and then expand their photographic talents.

have i said enough to get the general idea explained.. or should i post a copy of my weekly pay cheque minus living expenses....

please let me know if you can assist. its going to be some time before my friends and i can afford the kind of machines you guys are running.

ps. the dvd burner was a xmas present. without it i would not even consider getting on this site to ask for help.


it burns dvd's perfectly with my meagre rig.


over to you lot.

cmon wipe the tears out of your eyes and stand up straight.. if you havnt already... you will have kids one day...then you will understand.


WILL THE MASTER EVEN CONSIDER THIS ONE?????

 

joep42: I think you are going to have to Redo your project and Re-render it if you want to Change the Video file in that way...
That is why it is allways good to Preview your Project fully before you render it to make sure the Effects ,Transitions and Clips are all in the Right places and acting properly.....

Meridium: Hi, You should be able to capture to AVI format at 352+240 at 29.976fps or 14.985fps without much Problem and without Dropping too many frames if you capture useing either the HuffYUV codec or Uncompressed AVI but your problem will come in with the ammount of Disk space you are going to need...
When captureing to Uncompressed AVI at 352+240 and 29.976fps you will need about 300mb per minute of Video and about 175mb per minute with the HuffYUV Codec.....

Another problem you are going to have is encodeing the Captured files to Mpeg-2 Format for DVD because Your PC is So slow it might take 24 to 72 hours to encode a full movie to DVD format ,I also do not know of any DVD authoring Programs that will Run on a 666mhz CPU but I suggest you try these Programs and see how they work out for you....

"Virtual-Dub"-For Captureing and doing Basic editing..
"Tmpgenc" - For encodeing to Mpeg-2 DVD format...
"Tmpgenc DVD Author"-For authoring the mpeg-2 file to dvd....

You might also Consider Saveing up about $150 to $200 and Upgradeing your Lowly Machine to a More modern PC at about 2.0ghz+....I actually Just Bought a PC on E-Bay for $200 US that has 512mb DDR Ram and a 120GB HD and a 8X DVD Burner with WinXP Pro for $200 US and all it needs is a Athlon XP CPU up to a 3200+...I also Bought a Barebones PC for $130 which was a PC Case with a 400W PSU and a Motherboard and an Athlon XP 2700+ CPU....
You can get really good deals these days on PC Parts because a Lot of Manufacturers are Clearing out all Older Technology Like ATA Hard Drives and Socket 478 and Sochet A Motherboards and DDR ram and AGP Video cards to make way for the New PCI Express Vid Cards and SATA Hard Drives and Socket 775 and 774 Motherboards and DDR 2 and DDR 3 Ram so you can Find a Lot of This Stuff dirt cheap especially on E-Bay right now as a Lot of Poeple have there old stuff for sale cuz they got new stuff for XMas.....

Cheers

 

Hi.. I am new to this.. I am trying to copy some VHS to DVD . What I am doing is connecting my VHS to my tv tunner card.. capturing it with the software included (MSIPVS INTERVIDEO). I am capturing it in Mpeg format.. But when using Nero to burn the movie, It starts "transcoding" and it takes a lot of time to burn it to DVD ( 4 hours for 2 hours movie or so ). the problem is that the quality is like 80% of the VHS. What am I doing wrong ? Minion.. what would be the best method you recomend to transfer VHS-DVD ?
I have Celeron 1.8 Ghz, DVD Drive, Sony DVD burner. 40 Gig Hard Drive.

 

hello Minion, thank you for taking the time to reply to my posting.

i fully intend to get up to the top rung of the ladder in good time, but dont have the finances at this point.

what i was and still am looking for is a simple way to get my hi8 and vhs info onto cd or dvd to share with family and friends.

the quality is really not important its the content and the joy it will bring to others that is important.

i see so many offers on the internet that say one can record a whole dvd onto a single cd. are these offers just fantasy?

i have had cd's over the last 10 years that contained movies and video type material that were perfectly watchable.

this is the kind of solution that i am looking for. quick and easy?

i know that its a real step back in thinking when you are so advanced in this area but sometimes its simple solutions that solve problems.

if i were single with a bit of money i would probably spend half my life playing with computers and experimenting with cutting edge technology. as it is i have limited time and finances.

i spend much of my time collecting old computers and making up packages for underprivileged kids. its very rewarding.

i would love to be able to send cd's (maybe dvd's) to many people with basic video content, both for educational and social reasons.

i dont need to edit this material in any way (but would if there was a simple method) i just want to get it onto discs and distribute it.

its like the old addage about the type of transport one uses... its not the cost of the trip but whether one actually arrives that is important.

i really admire the banter that is going on in this thread and am somewhat envious of the technical knowledge carried by members, especially yourself. however i am sure that there is a simple and effective way to transfer basic video material from vhs and hi8 onto cd and dvd. this is what i am looking for.

having spent some time looking around i think this thread is my best chance to find that solution.

as you said there are many cheap bargains available right now, especially on ebay. this gives poor persons the opportunity to own computers and video cameras etc for the first time in their lives.

i know a lot of kids who would blow their minds to be able to borrow a video camera and then produce their own discs for distribution amongst their family and friends. (i know a loty of adults who would be pretty chuffed to be able to do the same thing).

we can always say that technology has moved on and we need to upgrade to achieve current levels of perfection but not all of us want or need that quality.

isnt there a simple way to move this data from one medium to another using older technology?

i would be really thrilled if you or some other member could come up with a solution that i will be able to share with all those using similar technology to myself.

i appreciate your efforts and hope that you or another member can solve this one for me.

**** just on another note i am considering copying the contents of these pages and colating and indexing the comtents for quick retieval of information. does anyone know if this has alreadt been done or if not would i be breaking any rukes to do this?

cheers to everyone...

 

Hi, I didn"t Say that you Couldn"t do it!! It"s the Exact opposite, I even told you what software (Free to Try and Totally free) you can use on your System to Do it with as Long as you have the Disk Space for the Captured Files....

You could even go the Very Low Quality Route and Capture to Mpeg-1 and Make VCD"s on to CD-R"s....

For this all you would need is your Capture card and a Mpeg-1 capture program Like "InterVideo WinDVR 3.0" and a VCD Burning program Like Nero or VCD Easy....

You will be able to Capture with your Lowly System to Mpeg-1/VCD without much Problem and be able to fit about 60 minutes on a CD-R that will be Playable on most Modern DVD Players and since it used a Fairly High compression and a Low Resolution the Files will not be Very Large....

You can also Put Mpeg-1 VCD Files onto DVD and this way you can fit about 6 hours of Video on a Single DVD-R but you would have to make sure you captured the audio at 48000hz and you would need to use a DVD authoring Program like "Tmpgenc DVD Author" to put the Mpeg-1 files on to DVD....

I don"t know of any Free Mpeg capture Programs but I"m sure you like everyone else knows how to get software for free but if not you can try Demo versions of Capture programs but they might not have the Functionality you need to do what you need done....

If you are Haveing Problems with Programs recognizeing your Card or working with your Card then I suggest that you Install the "Genaric BTWinCap Drivers" which will work with All BT8*8 Based Cards and will offer the Full Functionality of the Chipset to the Card which the Native Drivers will rarely do and it should then also work with all Capture Programs...

You can get these Drivers here:

http://btwincap.sourceforge.net/

I also used to only have a Lowly 800mhz Celeron CPU with 512mb ram and a 40gb HD and a BT878A Capture Card and I was able to make VCD"s and SVCD"s without much of a problem....

Also the Capture Software should have a Setting in it were you select what Input on the Card you are useing (Either Composite or S-Video) and if the S-Video doesn"t get a Clear signal (It should) then you might have to get a S-Video to RCA Composite adapter(About $2 at Radio Shack) but I can"t see you haveing a Problem after Installing the BTWinCap Drivers (Be sure to read the Install Instructions for the BTWinCap drivers)....

Cheers

PS: If you don"t have the Disk Space for the Captured Files then You aren"t going to be able to do anything no matter how fast your CPU is or what software you are useing but as Long as you have a Few Gigs of Space you should be OK for Mpeg-1 VCD capture....

 

Congratulations to Minion (et al) for a very informative thread. I'm not new to computers or graphics - but VERY new to DV - and it's just taken me 4 days to read the entire 23 pages of this thread!

And now I'm even more daunted than before I started...

My immediate needs are to convert about 500 hours of VHS (PAL) to DVD - and then I'll see if the urge has worn off - or I want to take it seriously!

Minion - your comments would be appreciated - I have asked my computer mate to suggest a new rebuild for me - he's done several good rigs for me in the past - but freely admits that he is NOT "totally up to speed" with DVD creation.

Here's what he has suggested...

1) PM800-Pro, 800FSB, 10/100 LAN, on Board Video+ AGP Slot, S-ATA+RAID 0,1
2) Intel Pentium-4 3.2Ghz 478-pin 800Mhz FSB 1MB Cache (Prescott)
3) 2 x Western Digital 80 gig 7200rpm SATA JD
4) 4 bay 400W Midi Tower case with side & top cooling fans
5) 1.44 FDD
6) 16 x Double layer DVD burner
7) 1Gb DDR400 ram
8) Video capture card - LEADTEK WinFast TV USB II

Software - not sure what will arrive bundled with the above - but I have Premier 6 - and downloaded every driver/codec that Minion recommended in the thread!

Minion - or anyone - please give me your comments on the above rig - and in particular the capture card. I note your preferance for Canopus product - but here in OZ - they are as rare as rocking horse manure - and considerable more expensive!

Greetings from Downunder - and I look forward to your reply.

 

Minion,

sorry if i made it sound like i didnt understand your earlier post. i knew that you were giving me good info but i thought that i might not have made myself clear about the miniscule size and quality that i was willing to accept in the processing.

ihave two projects in my mind:

1. to read this and other internet info and get myself educated in the video/dvd processing game (for personal pleasure and family benefits).

2. to find a quick, cheap method of getting video data onto CD's to distribute to persons without adequate funding for todays technology.

90% of the systems i build for underpriveleged kids only have a CD player. these are the persons who i am targeting at this point.

i had already accessed the driver you referred to (bt878) but i am still having trouble getting it to work successfully in my own rig. i might knock up a seperate machine just to experiment with. there is so much crap loaded on my machine i am amazed that it even boots up each day.

i will play around with all your suggestions and see how i go. if i stub my toe i will call out for help again.

incidently i would like to get the other board working if possible (avermedia mv-300, bt866). any advise or ideas about drivers etc on that one?

thanks again for your time and advise...

 

MarlinMan: That system would serve you well but Can I make a few Suggestions on your system that Might save you some Money and Make things a Little easier??

Firstly you Might be Better Off getting a Northwood P-4 than a Prescot for a couple reasons..One is that the Prescot is a Much Hotter running CPU than the Northwood because it has about 25 million more Circuts in the CPU to run the Extra L2 Cache and uses a Higer Voltage But it doesn"t Perform any better in Benchmarks than the Northwood even with the 1MB L2 cache....I have my 2.6ghz 800mhz FSB HT Northwood Clocked at 3.1ghz and it doesn"t even break 38C on idle and Benchmarks as good as a Prescot 3.06ghz CPU but without the Heat....

You should also consider getting a Motherboard that supports Dual Chanell DDR because haveing Dual Chanell Ram doubles the Ram speed and Bandwidth so you can get your DDR 400 Running at 800MHZ or even 1.0ghz if you get good Overclocking Ram which makes all the Differance in the World wspecially when running to Memory Hungry Editing and Encodeing Programs...
The PM800 Chipset doesn"t Support Dual Channel DDR so if you can look for a Motherboard that uses a Intel 865Pe or an Intel 875 Chipset then you would have a Motherboard that has all of the Overclocking Features you could ever want and support Dual Chanell DDR....

Another Thing i would suggest is to get a Bigger HD for Captured Files Like a 160GB or a 200GB and you Can keep a 60gb or 80gb for your Main Drive as when Captureing to AVI at the Highest Quality your Video Files can Take up as Much as 500mb to 1000mb per Minute of Video so a 80BG drive might only hold 1.5 or 2.0 hours of Video when Captureing to a Low Compression AVI format....

Another Thing is you should Stay away from USB Capture devices as they are Notorously unreliable and are Ridden with Quality Issues and Sync Problems among other Things....
I suggest that if you can"t get a high End Capture device Like a Canopus or Matrox Capture device you get a PCI capture card that uses a 10Bit decoder Chip as they are the Best Quality analogue Capture Chips for the Consumer Market available Right now...

I just did a Little search on E-Bay for you to see if there are any Canopus Devices down under and I found this one ...

http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=175&item=5152946755&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW



Cheers

 

Minion - you certainly don't dissapoint!

Thank you very much for all that... I'll start doing battle with the ebay seller - and see what happens...

Should I be concerned that the Canopus unit is "slightly second hand"? (bit like Slightly pregnant!)

I seem to remember you mentioning (favorably) the ProLink PixelView XCapture card - wouldthat be an option with this rig?

Again - Many thanks & Regards...

 

Hi, No you should have a problem with a Used ADVC-100 as they should last forever if Properly Cared For...

Cheers

 

Hi Minion, As a continuing "Newbie" I wish to ask your advice again. About 2 months ago you advised me to purchase a DVD recorder because my main goal was to convert a large number of aging VHS tapes to DVDs. I have been watching the market rather than buying because there seemed to be some break throughs starting to occur. One of these tech changes is the ability todo a direct conversion from VHS tape to a DVD disk without using a computer. Sony recently came out with their VRD-VC10 DVDirect DVD Recorder which can be used alone or in conjunction with your computer if editing is desired. I believe Pioneer has introduced a similar item. Do you believe this is an appropriate direction for someone like me (non-computer literate)? Have you heard about the Sony and/or do you know if it is a good product. It will also do "Double Layer" DVD burning. Your advice is and has been greatly appreciated.

Thanks again,

dragon