VCR to DVD

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J

John

Whats the best way of transferring a vcr tape to DVD. Do I need to go
through a PC (ie,Copy the vcr to hard disk and then compile a DVD) or can I
go direct with some device or other.
John
 
" Whats the best way of transferring a vcr tape to DVD. Do I need to go
through a PC (ie,Copy the vcr to hard disk and then compile a DVD) or can I
go direct with some device or other. "


The best way is to use a capture card and write directly to an MPEG-2 file.
Then you can create your DVD. www.dvdrhelp.com
 
Will the finished disk play in a standard DVD though?

Sure if you burn it in DVD format.

You can also burn it in SVCD format if you already have a CD burner.
Ive been transferring VHS stuff still goofing around because I havent
got an editor I really like yet and Ive briefly tried a few . The
problem is - Pinnacle is idiot level easy but its super slow and
crashes alot when Ive been using it. And in the lower res and smaller
protions of vid I was using it worked OK in Pinnacle but larger ones
at higher res (read below) - bring it to its knees so Im looking for
another one. I thought maybe RAID would be the solution but other
posters dont think it would make that much of a difference.

The thing I found matches what this guy says below. I first saw that
VHS pretty much equals 352x288 so I used that and it comes out like
CRAP ! Maybe some expert can dispute what this guy is saying and
point out the errors of my ways but I also got horrendous results and
most people I see who capture at that low res - VHS , it looks awful
too. Now sure VHS is bashed alot as being awful in quality , but
believe me - decent VHS can look quite decent , though I prefer DVDs
of course. When you transfer it at that low res - horrendous. You
see jaggies, blobs --- incredible degradation. Lots of problems with
motion and animation.

When I followed his advice and captured at a higher res it captures
VHS close to what it looks like originally. But of course the files
are much bigger which bogs down Pinnacle the editor I use.


As for playing the thing as I said most NEW DVD players can play SVCDs
and DVD+Rs and DVD-Rs , Depends on the player and media and burner you
use. On my Ricoh DVD+R and Liteon CDRW burner - no problems at all.

DVD+R can play on my old Panasonic RV30 first generation - though that
old generation cant play CDRs so no SVCDs.

DVD+R and CDRs can play on my newer Pioneer progressive scan , An old
Apex (the cheap apex and lennox etc - can play almost anything even
the old ones) and Lennox - both $49 can plays both DVD+ and CDR and a
slightly older JVC can play both.


THE VHS RESOLUTION:
--------------------------
If you search through the internet looking for information on the VHS
resolution, you will find basically 352x240 at 29.967fps (Frames Per
Second) for NTSC and 352x288 at 25fps for PAL-M. Yeah, right. You
capture with that resolution and you get a video that looks like shit.
So all those documents were wrong? No, they were inaccurate, or maybe
just incomplete. The VHS video works with the interlaced system (not
progressive), which means it draws every frame twice on the screen. In
fact, every frame of an interlaced video is divided in two fields (the
reason for this is a long story that comes from the first TV sets. You
can find more information about this in the articles session of
www.divx-digest.com). Those two fields mean that every frame carries
much more than just 240 or 288 lines of information. If you capture at
352x240 or 352x288 you'll be skipping every second field, which
results in only half of the resolution.

http://www.divx-digest.com/articles/vhs_capture.html
 
This is real good stuff John......thanks a lot! One last question......is
there a decent package out there for organising photos, and does anyone know
of a good scannere which will process a decent amount of negatives in one
pass. Oops sorry thats two.......Cheers John
 
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