Members Lucky #9 Posted November 20, 2009 Members Share Posted November 20, 2009 Looking for a few suggestions on the best method for high-quality transfer of VHS tape to DVD in order to eliminate/condense the VHS tape collection. The VHS library consists of a large collection of family recordings and many instructional guitar/music-type videos. I'm not interested in anything that produces sub-par results. So, would the ideal way to attain high-quality results be in a computer graphic card transfer scenario, an independant hardware-based item (either stand-alone or interfaced to the computer), or... I would like to do some editing of the family collection; not necessary for the instructional video transfers. If you can recommend specific hardware, that would be terrific. Many thanks in advance...and may your turkey swim well in very tasty gravy this Thanksgiving. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Rudolf von Hagenwil Posted November 20, 2009 Members Share Posted November 20, 2009 VHS Player OUT ---> Blackmagic DeckLink Studio capture card IN edit the video with FinalCut Pro ---> author and burn the DVD master. __________________________________________________________ VHS Player OUT ---> DVD Recorder IN then transfer the video on the DVD to the hard drive ---> edit ---> author and burn the DVD-VIDEO master. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Richard King Posted November 20, 2009 Members Share Posted November 20, 2009 Pick a card, any card http://www.hauppauge.com/ I have one of their older cards in my computational device that I use for your intended purposes. I edit with Pinnacle Studio 10 (a few generations old). I like Rudolf's first solution, but the bank is broke. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Rudolf von Hagenwil Posted November 20, 2009 Members Share Posted November 20, 2009 talked to the video technician, and he would do it like that: 1. Super VHS player anaolg OUT to converteryellow = videowhite = audiored = audio 2. Digital video converter analog IN 3. Digital video converter firewire OUT to Mac firewire IN 4. MAC firewire IN capturing with iMovie 5. Edit with iMovie 6. Burn DVD with iMovie Note: Using a Super VHS player imporoves the video quality at the analog out; Normal VHS players have lower picture quality analog video out. iMovie can edit as well author the DVD and burn the master. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members TimOBrien Posted November 20, 2009 Members Share Posted November 20, 2009 I transfered all of my old vhs home tapes with a Plextor USB converter with excellent results. Edited them with Sony Vegas Studio. (You're not going to improve the quality of VHS any more than whats already on the tape... do a clean transfer and take what you get.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Rudolf von Hagenwil Posted November 20, 2009 Members Share Posted November 20, 2009 (You're not going to improve the quality of VHS any more than whats already on the tape... do a clean transfer and take what you get.) some analog to digital video converter have algorithm which stabilizes the VHS analog signal during the conversion process, this is a must for achieving best results. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted November 20, 2009 Members Share Posted November 20, 2009 I have a stand-alone DVD player/recorder and just feed the VHS machine outs to the DVD recorder ins. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members spokenward Posted November 20, 2009 Members Share Posted November 20, 2009 The DVD recorder approach is the most cost effective. The Canopus ADVC line of Video to DV conversion boxes is now owned by Grass Valley. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Hard Truth Posted November 20, 2009 Members Share Posted November 20, 2009 A decent standalone DVD recorder set to a high quality record setting will get you the best results. They also have some limited editing capability good enough to trim the beginnings and ends and remove a chunk of content. Software DVD encoders/burners tend to have less quality. You better hurry if you want to buy a DVD recorder, they are becoming an endangered species. If you need to do extensive editing or signal clean-up then you'll need to take the computer route. If possible use a VHS player with an S-video (Y/C) output and use a video capture card with the same connector. A higher-end professional S-VHS player will give you a better picture and may even have a built-in time base corrector to stabilize the signal and allow for adjustment. There are adjustments that can be made with either a time base corrector or software color correction that will make the picture look better. Its best to use a waveform monitor and vectorscope to make sure your adjustments are technically correct. Better software color correction applications have software scopes you can use. Learn how to read the scopes. IMPORTANT WARNING: No one knows what the lifespan of a DVD-R is. I have thirty year old VHS tapes that still play. Backing up the VHS tapes is a good idea since they won't last forever. But keep the VHS tape, it may last longer than the DVD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gus Lozada Posted November 21, 2009 Share Posted November 21, 2009 Play videotape on VHS player... take your digital photographic camera with video capabilities and record what appears on TV screen. Drop digital file into computer. ... ... sorry, that's the way we do it in sunny third world Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rasputin1963 Posted November 21, 2009 Members Share Posted November 21, 2009 I used to have a Zenith all-in-one unit that featured both a VHS and DVD player, and one could copy from one to the other... Unless a Macrovision stripe got flagged, then it would refuse to go further. Eventually there was no more stuff I wanted to X-fer from VHS to DVD... so I gave the unit away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Bookumdano2 Posted November 21, 2009 Members Share Posted November 21, 2009 Canopus/Grass Valley ADVC 300. Great for everything Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Lucky #9 Posted November 24, 2009 Author Members Share Posted November 24, 2009 Many thanks for all the info, folks. I appreciate your effort.The Canopus/Grass Valley ADVC 300 looks like a great machine with very good reviews from users. A little pricey for me right now, but it would probably be my first choice if I could swing the $. May purchase an all-in-one stand-alone VHS-to-DVD recorder and then ebay it when I'm done. Just wondering if the quality would be sufficient. Again, thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Rudolf von Hagenwil Posted November 24, 2009 Members Share Posted November 24, 2009 May purchase an all-in-one stand-alone VHS-to-DVD recorder and then ebay it when I'm done. Just wondering if the quality would be sufficient. DVD recorder can be set to record 1 hour on a 4,7 GB media in best quality Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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