VHS to DVD Software Recommendations Wanted

11/8/05

[pabianice]

I have about 200 hours of home movie videos on VHS. My VCR is on its last legs.

Can anyone recommend VHS to DVD software that is fast, easy, and inexpensive?

Thanks.

[YouPosting2Me]

Have you looked at Beta? Very promising technology...

[Hazzardgate]

I recently bought the Winstar 2000 analogue video card and IT'S GOLD! Cost about $200. Just make sure you use a stereo VCR with 4 heads when you transfer the vids to your hard drive.

[Chuck54]

Get a Panasonic DVD burner with a hard drive. Mine has an 80GB hard drive. Very easy to transfer and edit your VHS tapes using this device.

[Smogger]

Just get yourself an ATI all-in-wonder (whatever number is cheapest) and record them onto your hard-drive in mpeg format. You can then recompress them to whatever format you would like later.

Get a big hard drive (to store video data) and a damn fast computer because recompressing them (should you so desire) can be very cpu intensive.

[Izzy Dunne]

Unless you just like the doing of it yourself, consider using a service to do it for you.

[fatrat]

your answers are at this website. www.vcdhelp.com

[CaptRon]

I just got the WinTV-USB2 myself and I like it a lot. Haven't tried the VHS to DVD yet but I intend to this weekend.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Analog to DVD translation is EXTREMELY processor intensive so while it is compiling, you can forget using your computer for anything else. I would get a DVD recorder with a built in hard drive that would allow you to download a whole tape and then edit and record it to a DVD.

[FReepaholic]

I just bought a GO-VIDEO dual DVD/VHS recorder off of Ebay.

It's great. I'm dubbing all my VHS home movies to DVD without bogging down my PC. (Can't let anything get in the way of Freeping!)

[Mixer]

If you are going to use your computer make sure that you have a lot of Hard disc space. Also be prepared that while ripping and burning these DVDs with your PC you won't be doing lots of other stuff with it.

If you want my opinion (and I use both methods) go with a standalone DVD recorder. You can get one for as little as $100 and a really really good one between $200 and $300. Even the one for $100 (Cyberhome) is pretty good and does the job.

The task of getting those videos onto the hard drive and then editing and burning to DVD is quite a task and very time consuming. Copying from VHS to DVD recorder with a standalone takes only as long as the tape you are copying.

Hope that helps.

[bmwcyle]

I use the Sony DVDirect (VRDVC20) DVD±RW Dual Layer Burner. Use only Maxell blank DVDs with this unit. All others do not work on a stand alone mod.

[FReepaholic]

...I have about 200 hours of home movie videos ...

You'll need 200 DVD's, by the way.

I found out very quickly that home movies look like crap on DVD if you don't use the higest quality setting, which only allows 1 hour of record time on the DVD.

[Dark Knight]

I'd consider doing it hardware only. If you don't want to transfer the stuff to digital, and play with it (I'm teaching myself how to do this for practice on a professional program) a VHS to DVD machine maybe the right choice. The information will be archived on a relatively safe media, compared to tape. Your tapes are deteriating, and you will notice the difference.

Once you get the stuff archived to digital, you will have time to research other stuff. I have a 250 gig Lacie firewire external HD for storage and it will hold about 20 hours of RAW video, uncompressed.

If you don't know what I am talking about, read this article.

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,117413,00.asp

It is a year old, so prices have dropped and there are more options.

But if you really want to get into the digital world, visit some of the places the videoguys habitate on. They have a lot of good views.

http://www.videoguys.com/

Good luck!
DK

[E. Pluribus Unum]

You need some hardware to do what you are suggesting, which is actually to capture the analog ouput of your VCR player to a file on your hard drive.

The cheapest way is to purchase a cheap TV tuner card like

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815100129

or

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814122180

The second card is a little more expensive, but can run on a 300 MHz PC.

After installing the tuner card, you hook up the output of your VCR to the coaxial input of the tuner. You then play the VCR and record an MPEG file to your hard drive.

Here is free software you can use to burn the file to to your DVD-RW drive.

http://www.cdburnerxp.se/

[scouse]

I have a LiteOn DVD-VHS recorder (Model #: LVC-9006). Simplest thing to do is copy from VHS to DVD. Simply insert a tape into the tape deck and the DVD disk into the tray. Push one button (Copy) and the task is done.

[CHICAGOFARMER]

go to ebay and search for Studio 9 software.

For two hundred hours of VHS tape you will need approximately 200 GB of storage.

[CHICAGOFARMER]

I have a LiteOn DVD-VHS recorder (Model #: LVC-9006). Simplest thing to do is copy from VHS to DVD. Simply insert a tape into the tape deck and the DVD disk into the tray. Push one button (Copy) and the task is done.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Good idea.

Can you then copy it to your computer????

[SlowBoat407]

I have a somewhat high-end editing setup (PowerMac G5 with Final Cut Pro), but sometimes I would love to have a simple DVD recorder with a built-in hard drive so I can skip some of the steps.

If you just want to archive them without enhancement, go as simple as possible and get a DVD recorder, possibly one with a VHS built in.

[Petronski]

Rather than coax, try to use RCA patch cords (or better yet, SVHS patch cords) to connect the video to the TV card in the computer.

Also, Virtual VCR is free. Capture the video using Huffy lossless compression (giant AVI files), then compress using DIVX or XVID (see if you can find Dr. Divx software).

That's how I do it.