Transferring VHS to DVD

[Mike Blakesley]

I have a bunch of old VHS tapes that I want to move to DVD, but I want to edit them on my computer. (Take out commercials and other junk) I guess I want to buy one of those VHS-to-DVD machines to make "raw" disks that I could then load into the computer for editing down to the final versions. The video card on my computer doesn't have external inputs. Anybody got any recommendations on how to proceed, what hardware to get, and what software to use?

 

[Rudy]

Ouch!

If you plan on doing editing, you'll need a lot more hard drive space. I know when I edit raw video off of my video camera, it saves it in AVI format, which is a space hog. Some editors may save this as MPEG video, but I wouldn't want to edit and work with a lossy video signal, then make it even more lossy when rendering it for DVD.

You may be better off getting a DVD recorder that has an internal hard disk, as many do now. Dump the whole tape to the hard drive, add track markers, then burn the DVD. If you want to do further editing, then you might hop over to the computer. I'm not sure how much other editing you can do on those machines--if they would do enough for your needs, they would save a lot of money and grief trying to do it on a computer.

I bought my camcorder with the intention of using it as a "passthrough" to encode video signals and send them out via the Firewire cable. But seeing how much space AVI used, I didn't even bother.

For video, I'm using an older version of Sonic Foundry's Vegas. It works and is laid out almost the same as CD Architect, which you're used to, except that it has multiple tracks to work with. Pretty neat! My 5-year-old computer is a tad slow, but still churns out decent performance. (It's only slow when rendering a video file for DVD, or web formats.)

I know there are video cards out there but I haven't even looked at them yet. They probably have good external devices that work via USB2 or Firewire these days.

 

[Mike Blakesley]

These tapes are nothing super special -- just old TV shows. My plan was to use a VHS-to-DVD machine to make disks, then load them into the computer one at a time, edit and then burn a new DVD. I notice that Sony has a "DVD Architect Studio" that looks like a stripped down version...it would probably do what I want, maybe?

I don't think space would be a problem - my home machine has two 500GB drives.

 

[Harry]

I use a unit like Rudy describes - a hard disk unit that also writes out to DVD. It's a Pioneer, but I'm not sure they still make them.

I'll use a separate VHS machine to play the tape, patch it into the recorder, record to the hard drive, do the editing on the hard drive in the Pioneer, insert chapter stops where necessary, and then write it out to a DVD.

That way the computer's not involved at all - but since these hard drive units are somewhat difficult to find these days, I can understand wanting to use the hard drive in the computer for editing purposes.

One other idea - just record the VHS to the DVD and leave it with the commercials in. Believe it or not, recorded commercials tend to be the most entertaining things about some old VHS tapes!

Harry

 

[Mike Blakesley]

That is a good point -- in another 20 years those old commercials will be pretty funny/entertaining.

 

[Brasil_66_Fan]

I've got a Panasonic VHS/DVD recorder that'll copy directly but can't be paused to edit commercials, so I ended up doing it a "Low-Tech" way, by hooking up a separate VHS recorder to the DVD recorder (using the best possible connection such as S-Video, HDMI or Component) and then run the tape, hitting the 'Pause' at the commercials. Very tedious, especially if I preview the tape and note where I need to make the pauses. Picture quality is OK - considering that some tapes that are over 25 years old and irreplaceable (kid's birthdays/graduations, Brasil '77 concert, etc.)........

 

[satan165]

My gear includes:

-Dazzle USB/RCA adaptor
-Sony Vegas

I capture to uncompressed AVI (which as mentioned is a 'space hog' indeed) then do my editing in Vegas and eventually render down the edited vid to a more suitable codec/file type.

 

[Rudy]

My gear includes:

-Dazzle USB/RCA adaptor
-Sony Vegas

I capture to uncompressed AVI (which as mentioned is a 'space hog' indeed) then do my editing in Vegas and eventually render down the edited vid to a more suitable codec/file type.

I've forgotten...but do you know how much space a minute of video takes up in AVI format? I know if I run off a half hour of footage from the camcorder, it's a pretty darned big file. (Hundreds of megabytes...?)

Next computer I build will have plenty more storage on it, so I can do more of these projects. But still, I filled up a 640GB hard drive with all sorts of music files when I got the Zune, and ripped 1200+ CDs and pulled in all sorts of needle drops from other drives.

 

[Rick-An Ordinary Fool]

I got rid of just about my entire VHS collection which was about 50 old tapes. I used my Panasonic DVR recorder (which contains a hardrive) I dubbed from my VCR into the Panasonic harddrive and then once on the harddrive I could edit it down and take out what I didn't want and then burned the video file to a DVR-R, it really works great, very user friendly and not complicated at all. I've had this Panasonic DVR recorder for about 4 yrs and it's really paid for itself with how much I have used it to save old stuff I really wanted to keep.

I also have it hooked up to my Sony High Def Harddrive that records from any tv channel even the High Def ones, the Sony does not record to a DVD it's only a Harddrive, so when I want to save something I dub it down from my Sony to my Panasonic to a DVR-R of course it dubs it down to standard def only but still it looks like DVD quality.