VHS Tapes to DVD

PS: I have TiVo and record hundreds of movies directly to my Toshiba or Philips. Just put in a blank, start the movie and press RECORD!

Oh, I might add you can set length of record. If you have a normal movie it would be set at 120 min. Toshiba has a more choices like 133 min, 157 min...etc etc. up to 3 hrs

 

samintx - have you ever put those movies from tivo on dvd? if so how did it work. have you ever connected your computer directly to tivo to direct capture instead of going to a vcr first?

 

Why put on the computer? and suffer no memory or transfering a second time.

Every day I copy directly from TiVo. Hook the recorder directly to the Tivo and a monitor so I can observe and have a movie collection of 1700++. Each day I put on DVD (as I have told you before) at least 2-3. Some days from Dawn to Dusk...

Why would you want to put on a computer HD when you can copy directly to a DVD? If you want to put on a RW/DVD you can do that directly with the recorders.

 

PS: altho I copy only movies that don't have commericals, Sometimes one is on AMC and I take the commercials out during my watching/recording with the pause button. Works well because AMC has a trailer when commericals are coming on.

The recorders will also put movie in chapters when you copy to DVD...5-10 min whatever you set up. You can also have it record when you are not there...to DVD but I don't like that because I want to watch and see if everything is OK.

 

Thanks for your answer samintx but i'm more into doing aquisition directly to the pc .. to be able to play with the footage and make menu's, animation and things like that .. and from what i understood the dvd recorder encode directly to a certain compression level and also burn vob directly which would give me more work in the end (with extraction, demuxing and all..)

Any hint on those enhancer boxes, anyone?

thanks

 

Hi Minion - hope you're on line!

I'm back with my first (prob not last) problem!

Finally bought the Canopus you found for me in Oz - and it arrived with a copy of VideoStudio 8.
It looked straight forward enough to use for my first analog transfer - and I've just tested my first DVD-R...

Very good video on both TV & Computer - good sound on computer - but absolutely no sound on TV!

Project Template Properties are...

PAL (25fps)
MPEG files
24 bits, 720 x 576, 25fps
Lower Field First
(DVD-PAL),4:3
Video Data Rate: 6000 kbps
LPCM Audio, 48 KHz, Stereo

Also - I've probably stuffed up more than the audio because I only managed to get 1 hour 20 mins of VHS analog onto the 4.3 GB DVD!

Any advice appreciated - and rude remarks tolerated!

 

Hi, You probably Somehow Lost the audio when encodeing the Video file to Mpeg-2 for DVD...

I would suggest that Make sure the audio is there before Burning the Video_TS to DVD and that the audio is in the Correct format...
I allways Encode My audio seperately so i know it is OK so you can try the Same...I use Vegas Video 5 to encode the audio in my projects to Dolby AC3 and haven"t had a Problem yet....

good Luck

 

Found it Minion!
Had two sets of conflicting formats... doh!
I've now got my first DVD done - I'll do a couple more this way before I try getting clever!
Again many thanks for your help
JP

 

I am transferring from VHS tapes to DVD using a pinnacle AV/DV capture device ( firewire card with analogue "breakout" box ). Pal 4:3 720x576 6000Kbits

I have captured these in Mpeg 2 format....imported them to Adobe Premier Pro 1.5 for editing & titles....imported them to Adobe Encore 1.5 to build and burn the DVD.

Problem Is:
The DVD plays fine on the computer but is "shaky" "blurred" in places when played through the set top DVD player and TV.

If I import the captured file directly to Encore without the Premier editing it is perfect.

If I capture as an avi then convert to Mpeg in Premier, again it is fine.

I have tried all sorts of variations to eliminate this without success and having edited the captures &
built titles etc. would rather not go through the process of re-capturing everything in avi format. De-interlacing in Premier prior to using Encore makes no difference.

Thanks

 

Re previous post:

I should have mentioned that the capture software is Studio 9 deluxe.

Perhaps Minion with your wide experience could possibly give your input.......many thanks.
P.S. I am a total beginner

 

Hi, Your Problem is that when you Import the Mpeg-2 files into premier for editing the Files get Re-Encoded when they are rendered which in all Cases Ruins the Quality and Can Have other Atrifacts Like an Incorrect Field order which will Give you a Jumpy effect in high motion Scenes....

If you want to Edit your Mpeg-2 files you should be useing a Native Mpeg-2 editor Like "Womble Mpeg Video Wizard 2003" or get the "MainConcept Mpeg Pro Plugin" for Premier which adds Native Mpeg editing to Premier so there will be No quality loss when editing because the Files do Not get re-encoded and the Rendering will take Minutes as opposed to hours....

So Either Capture in AVI format and edit in Premier and render as Mpeg-2 or Capture to Mpeg-2 and use a Native Mpeg-2 editor to edit or the Mpeg editing Plugin for premier.....

Hope this Helps

 

Hi everyone, I'm a total newbie. I want to make a compilation DVD using several different music videos from some of my favorite artist. Most of the videos I will be using are going to be from DVD sources but there are several old retail music videos that I want to convert. I guess my question is, what is the best way to transfer the VHS to my computer, so I can later edit them and put them onto a DVD. Since most of the videos I'll be using are on DVD the quality is great, so I need to rip the VHS at the highest quality possible, I am not too concerned about the audio, cause I plan to redub the videos with cd quality audio, I just need the videos to look good. So what all do I need for the best rip!!! Which vcr would be the best? Should I use a program or get something from Canopus? What's the best set up? Encoder? Stabilizer? Any help would be so appreciated

 

The Biggest thing that will determine the Quality of your VHS Captures is the Quality of the Capture device and the Condition of the VHS Tapes....

You can get a Cheapo PCI analogue Capture Card that will Capture OK quality for about $50 the trouble with them is there is allways the Chance of Sync problems and Dropped Frames which can make the Whole Process Frustrateing....

If you want Trouble Free Captures with High Quality and have about $250 to Spend I would suggest something like the "Canopus ADVC-100" or the "Canopus ACEDVio" which use Hardware DV Encodeing to Compress the Video Signal to Digital DV AVI format with Extremely high Quality and without the Problems of Analogue Capture cards..

The DV AVI format is the Best Format For editing as Most Editing Programs Can edit DV Losslessly so there is no Quality loss when editing and Rendering is Very Fast....

If you had say $500 to Spend you could get something like the "Canopus Mpeg Pro EMR" which is an extremely High Quality Mpeg-2 Hardware encoder which will Capture directly to Mpeg-2/DVD format so you Basicly just Have to use a DVD authoring Program and add your menu"s and Chapters and Burn to DVD..You don"t have to do any encodeing because the Files will allready be in the Correct Format for DVD...

You could also Just get yourself a Standalone DVD Recorder which can Capture from your VCR directly to DVD and then you Can Just Import the DVD files to your PC and edit them and Compile them with your Other Vid Files and Put them on to DVD.....

What Software you use would depend on your Budget and your Needs..Some Capture devices come with a software Package but the Software isn"t allways the Best...

Cheers

 

Minion, thanks for the advise, now I am torn between getting either the Canopus ADVC110, the ACEDVio or a stand alone DVD recorder, they all seem like a cool idea. In your opinion which do you think would be the best route. I like the idea for the standalone DVD recorder but was curious if there was a DVD recorder in the 250-300 price range that would produce the same type of quality that I would get by using one of the Canopus products. Do you have any suggesstions for a recoder cause i was looking on-line and saw they range from 250 to 700 dollars. And will DVD recorders copy, copyrighted VHS to DVD?
Thanks in advance

 

Hi, Well getting a DVD Recorder would be the easiest way and fastest way and still Produce good results and you don"t have to spend weeks or months Figureing out how to do everything...

If you go on E-Bay you should be able to Find a DVD Recorder for under $250....I can"t really tell you which Brand to get or what model to get because I don"t own one and all My experience with them is Second hand...Go on line and read some reviews on various Brands till you find one with the features you want ....
You will still need a Video Stabilizer for the Copy protection though....

Cheers

 

I borrowed a Panasonic DVD recorder to convert my VHS/8mm analogue video footages (30hrs). The quality is very good. I cannot see any skipped frames or audio/video sync problems. The only problem is the menu system is terrible. So I used Ulead MovieFactory 2SE to create another DVD with a half decent menu.

Now I'm using a miniDV camera. This time its a headache and very time consuming process of converting DV to DVD. MF2SE seems to miss frames when capturing, with horizontal jaggies on most frames. And it takes 2 hours to convert the AVI to MPEG2 format. The only way around this was to use Ulead VideoStudio 7SE to capture the DV signal and convert it to AVI, then use MF2SE to produce a menu and convert to MPEG2 and burn onto a DVD. Am I doing something wrong here? I thought that using miniDV is much simpler and quicker than capturing analogue video.

Is using the new Adobe Premier Element 1.0 the best? Its retail price is @A$169. Anyone has any recommendations (cheap software that works)?

Thanks.

 

Thanks Minion

Sorry I took so long to get back ( been out of town for a few days )
I suspected it was something to do with the way Premier Pro was handling the capture file.
Your knowlegde and information is invaluable.

Thanks again

 

Thanks Minion and Ray for all your help! I'm off now to read reviews and see which DVD recorder to get.

 

just food for thought.....(hmmm a plate of linguine would be nice now)....I got the plextor mx402 converter for $150 at their store....plug in your vcr....pop in a vhs tape...comes with intervideo software....hit record...and converts the vhs file to mpeg 2 or 4 or divx...you can go from that directly to burn on a dvd...or to your HD..and edit it later if u want....no software is needed to convert the files to mpeg....just a suggestion..it's very easy to do

 

Is this Plextor converter an English product or available in US? How is the fidelity of the picture?