HornEd Posted March 28, 2003 Share Posted March 28, 2003 Having passed the 400 DVD mark in my home movie library and picking up a snazzy DVD burner in a new laptop sparked the thought... why not back-up my VHS collection on DVD. Obviously, a stereo DVD version of a movie won't be the equal of a dts 6.1 DVD of the same movie... but it sure would be a good idea for many rare VHS productions that are not available on commercial DVD's. I have a Toshiba six-head VHS recorder and a new Toshiba high speed DVD recorder... so the potential for perserving the VHS library seems to be there. If any of my Forum friends (or even a bi-pole sitter) has any tips for creating better VHS-DVD transfers... please put it in a post. Thanks. =HornED PS: Of course, the high court ruling that backing up purchased movies falls within the "Fair Use" Doctrine... and therefore legal in these United States. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WMcD Posted March 28, 2003 Share Posted March 28, 2003 Welcome back Ed. We missed you. Gil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruinsrme Posted March 28, 2003 Share Posted March 28, 2003 Well my friends and debate this and my input was; By the time you burn the movie and buy the media nad spend the time on the computer it seems that most of the movies you burn, and you probably have not watched in 5 years, it doesn't seem worth the investment. Now family movies and photo are priceless, timeless and invaluable. Scott Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HornEd Posted March 28, 2003 Author Share Posted March 28, 2003 Thanks, Gil, it sure is good to be back... even if I have to duck out from time-to-time... like next week for more tests. It is always heartening when people you respect notice when you are not around and wish you were back. I agree with you, bruinsrme, but I think I am more likely to pop in a DVD than add some wear and tear to a favorite tape. In addition to the family history thing, I have dozens of foreign language VHS films that I cannot get on DVD now... or likely in the future. My favorite VHS films that have been brought up to date on DVD are purchased as they occur and the VHS tapes donated to worthy causes. My quest is for any technical tips that will make the time and expense incurred more worthwhile. Thanks for your input. =HornED Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gordon Groff Posted March 28, 2003 Share Posted March 28, 2003 Hey, HornEd!!! Welcome back! Good to see you posting again!! I don't know beans about VHS to DVD dubbing, but just wanted to say "Hi!" from Sweet Nancy and I. Gordon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ou8thisSN Posted March 28, 2003 Share Posted March 28, 2003 finally a subject that I know something about, the first thing you need in your computer is a video card with VIVO (Video In AND Video Out). S-Video/composite converters are readily available so dont concern yourself with that particularly. you take the composite from the video and plug it into the video card, and then get an RCA to line level mini stereo plug for conecting to the line in on the sound card. now thats the easy part, you have to capture the signal onto your hard drive, and it will most likely be in uncompressed AVI format, which takes up like 500k/sec, which amounts to gigabytes... Adobe Primiere is probably the best program to do video capture and editing, although it is very complex... but it is the best quality filters. its quite expensive though, and I wouldnt get it unless I knew what I was doing. MGI Video Wave is a great inexpensive program with capture abilities, but I havent used it and cannot give you any idea besides that it doesnt cost $600 like Primiere. Now, if you capture to uncompressed Avi, that has to be converted to MPEG2 before it can be burned to DVD. this is a very long and tedious process that takes a lot of processor and ram power. I have a computer with 2 AMD Athlon MP 1900+ (s) and it takes me like 8-10 hours to be able DVD quality rips. the best program to use for converting AVI to MPEG2 is called CinemaCraft Encoder SP 4.5, again, its quite expensive, like $2500 for a private lisence. Again there is an open alternative, TmpgENC, which is free, but the quality is not quite as good as CCE's encoder. You're gonna need plenty of hard drive space as well, I would suspect at least like 100gb of free space for each 2 hour tape you want to xfer. A good DVD burning program is from Ahead Nero, which lets you do all kinds of cool pro stuff. you should definitely look into the vcdhelp.com forums. they specialize in this stuff and can really give you a good idea how to get started in much more detail. also check out www.doom9.net Like I said, its a long, complicated, time consuming, expensive process. Perhaps you might want to look at sending your tapes out to businesses that specialize in this stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HornEd Posted March 29, 2003 Author Share Posted March 29, 2003 Gordon, great to hear from you and Sweet Nancy. Unfortunately, the sampler you sent me was sent from the adress I gave you to the hospital... and somewhere in the wonders of USPS, the disk was cracked. Fortunately, I have fairly good equipment so I heard and enjoyed most of it. Actually, I didn't have much hope when I plunked it in the machine... but by using progressive scan... most of the music came tripping out. Sweet Nancy really has a talent for pulling quality out of thin air... and substantial gray matter! Thanks for sharing... and I hope more free spirited piano heads will tap into Sweet Nancy's CD's. More later. =HornED Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HornEd Posted March 29, 2003 Author Share Posted March 29, 2003 Thanks, Ou8thisSN, for the up-to-date primer on translating yesterdays VHS into today's stereo DVD's. I appreciate your cautions on the time and expense... but I am perhaps a bit better equipped to make a run at it than you might suspect. I have the computing power and just added a 200 GB hard disk that spins at 7,200 and has an 8 MB cache. The processor runs at 2.53 GHz and am no stranger to SVHS or S-Video. I have experience in building high end RIPs (Raster Image Processors) for high end printing and have had the equipment and know-how to produce commercial VHS tapes from scratch. I am also on Adobe's VIP list and was there for the annoucement of Adobe Premiere as a product. But, most of my knowledge in this field is way out of date. Your post helped point me in the right direction for which I am most appreciative. I have a computer developer friend who has been burning DVD's for awhile and we are scheduled to get together this weekend. I was hoping to get a feel for what is happening now... and your post seems to have done that for me. Thanks again. =HornED Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gordon Groff Posted March 29, 2003 Share Posted March 29, 2003 ---------------- On 3/29/2003 12:47:35 AM HornEd wrote: Gordon, great to hear from you and Sweet Nancy. Unfortunately, the sampler you sent me was sent from the adress I gave you to the hospital... and somewhere in the wonders of USPS, the disk was cracked. Fortunately, I have fairly good equipment so I heard and enjoyed most of it. Actually, I didn't have much hope when I plunked it in the machine... but by using progressive scan... most of the music came tripping out. Sweet Nancy really has a talent for pulling quality out of thin air... and substantial gray matter! Thanks for sharing... and I hope more free spirited piano heads will tap into Sweet Nancy's CD's. More later. =HornED ---------------- Shame about the broken disc! Glad you got some stuff off it. If you want another, no prob. I'm glad you're up and about again. Best wishes to you, Ed Gordon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
avman Posted March 29, 2003 Share Posted March 29, 2003 hey HornEd!! glad to c-ya back!! a guy i work with has been burning dvd copies of some concerts (w/permission)and adding chapters/fade out effects etc. we used the sony vx2000 mini dv camcorder, and took the a/v out to dvd recorder,burning the audio and video to dvd live at the concert. hopefully your friend can help over the weekend, but if you need more info, check back and i'll see if he can talk/e-mail about his experience. avman. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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