I want to convert my odd VHS family movies to either DVD or the hard drive. I might edit them later on. So what is the best format to transfer to with the lowest losses? I was told to use a caputure card. Another person told me just buy a DVD home stereo recorder and record directly to dvd and then edit afterwards. Anyone have any suggestions?
I vote for the VCR to DVD Recorder method. I converted most of my commercial movie tapes this way - and since your tapes are home movies, you don't have the aggravation of Macrovision protection to contend with.
In my own case, I am using a combination VCR/DVD Recorder to convert my VHS tapes to DVD. When I started my project, I did not own a VCR, so I needed that anyway. I put the tape in one side of the unit and a blank DVD in the other side and hit the dubbing button. The tape plays and records to the DVD in real time. It can be as simple as that. The particular unit I bought was the Magnavox MWR20V6 available at Wal-Mart; it is probably the least expensive of the units. If I want to edit them later on, I can copy the files from the dubbed DVD to my computer hard drive and go from there.
I will say that converting your own tapes is very easy with the combo unit. I have done this for myself and several friends. Put tape in one side blank DVD in the other, hit go and thats it. Oh, dont forget to time it. However if you are converting old purchased tapes you will need a stabilizer. I have been working on this for hours and hours. I did not find the real instructions from the company for hours and hours. I knew I was doing some little thing wrong but couldnt figure it out. I found them moments ago. There was a little trick with the remote and the combo unit. I followed them exactly, and wow, the little machine worked as advertized and now I will finish my project of copying all my tapes and clear out my closet! Yipppie.
I have a lot of old Disney movies on VHS for my children, but they are getting extrelely worn out from use. I would like to convert them to DVD. I do not own a DVD recorder combo, I have heard that the copywrite protection will not allow you to backup the movies. So can I hook my VCR up to my CPU and download the movies to my hdd then burn with imgburn?? Any easier suggestions would be helpful as well. Thanks
LadyLynn, You will need a capture card in order to hook your VCR to your CPU, and one that will ignore Macrovision too. I was sucessfull using a Hauppauge capture card in converting mine. I know that the card I used, a PVR 150, ignores Macrovision. If you are looking to place Disney movies on dvd, it might be easier and quicker to find used dvds on ebay, amazon or other similar sites. I know the picture quality would be better on the dvds vs the tape transfer to dvd.
I have tried this combination of VCR/DVD with a Sima CT-200 between the two. However, the picture quality being burned to the DVD is horrible. For a lack of a better word, it is pixelated. There are no smooth lines, but rather everything appears squared off, much like what you would see if you zoomed in on a digital photo in photo editing software. None of the "enhancement" settings do anything to improve this. Any ideas? I can't imagine everyone who is copying their VHS to DVD are happy with this result. Am I doing something wrong? Can this be fixed? Any help would be greatly appreciated? Thanks
The pixelation may be caused by the DVD recorder having to be set for 'Long Play' because the tape is over two hours. The incoming video is being compressed at a rate that will fit four hours onto the disk. My recorder has a flexible recording setting - I set the recording time (E,G 2 hours 24 minutes) and the compression is adjusted accordingly.
Thanks for your reply. I wish that were it, but the VHS tapes I have been trying to convert to DVD are all less than 2 hours in length and I have adjusted the record time to SSP (2hr) on the recorder as the SP setting is only 1.5 hours. I haven't even attempted to convert the VHS tapes that are longer than 2 hours since I couldn't even get the simple ones to come out right. I verified that at least four of the movies I copied to DVD were in fact >1.5 hrs but less than 2 hrs in length. I got this info from the DVDs themselves and the VHS version of the movies.
Just to clarify the set-up that I used: My VCR/DVD Recorder is a single combination unit with a VCR slot and a DVD slot. There is no place to put a device like your Sima in-between because there is no in-between. I have not had the kind of problem that you describe; perhaps it is due to the Sima?
Thanks for the input. I am guessing at this point that the recorder I am using may be a piece of junk. I will try a different one and see what happens.
