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Location: Jonquil City (aka Smyrna) Georgia- by Atlanta
16,259 posts, read 24,766,887 times
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I have lots of video tapes - some over 22 years old of my kids when they were little. They are analogue VHS tapes shot in the standard 2 hour format at that time.
I am interested in putting them into digital format on a computer and doing some basic "cut" edits and then laying the edited content on a DVD. For example, I have one of my son when he was baby, another when he was 2, 3, 5, all the way up to now- from diapers to HS graduation. I want to dump all this onto a hard drive and edit a "montoge" DVD of bits and pieces of his life onto a single DVD and give it to him and his wife when he marries next summer.
What hardware and software is best to do this?
Buy a capture device , either an internal card or a USB device. I suggest USB as they are typically cheaper and less hassle to setup. Just search for usb video capture on amazon or newegg or something then read the specs to make sure it supports the outputs on your VCR (typically composite or component). Read reviews and google whatever model you decide on before you buy it though as the quality (Specially the software included) can vary greatly.
Unless you have unlimited time to do this project, do the following alternative. Go out and purchase a VHS to DVD table top converter. The good ones have a one button conversion. Place the tape in on side and the blank DVD in the other. Once you have converted everything to DVD, then you can place the DVD in your computer and copy to your hard drive the selections you want. You may have to research which s/w on the market will suit you best to job on your computer.
I go for NeilVA's suggested method, for the ease of operatibilty.
Ir will burn you your DVD Master, then theres a bit of a learning curve regarding how to splice .IFO, .VOB, .FUB component files (which are the digitiezed files of Little Johnnys Birthday you want to splice).
Perhaps others on here can reccomend good Video Suites they use that do this with fair ease for thost creating a DVD, edited.
TOMSD's approach is very purist, and one probably a lot of us on here would emply for the few VHSs we have (myself included).
It also involves looking to Software for editing after the final DVDs are created. Its just that a VHS to DVD box may make this all an easier task to do for dozens of VHS tapes. I hope the other members here will advise on the Software he needs for the editing after this.
Can I meantion Windows DVD maker built into Vista as a possibility there? It splices, it dices, and you can create a DVD to be burned by dragging avi, mpg, etc, into a playlist editing screen. I'm sure you can drag media from source cd's too (Those .IFO, .VOB, .Vub files) - and most off all it makes the most dazzling Splash screens with little to no effort.
Best wishes to your project! I'm not an expert on video but hopefully this helps.
Last edited by Lionsdale; 06-03-2009 at 10:50 PM..
Unless you have unlimited time to do this project, do the following alternative. Go out and purchase a VHS to DVD table top converter. The good ones have a one button conversion. Place the tape in on side and the blank DVD in the other. Once you have converted everything to DVD, then you can place the DVD in your computer and copy to your hard drive the selections you want. You may have to research which s/w on the market will suit you best to job on your computer.
The only problem with this is that the OP wanted to EDIT the videos BEFORE putting them on DVD. Your approach forces the OP to go through the extra steps of copying the unedited DVD to the hard drive, editing it there, and burning a new DVD. TomSD's approach accomplishes what the OP wanted, with less hassle.
The unit mentioned above from CESELL will copy directly to disk so editing is not a concern. The price is not too tacky, either. If this is as good quality as my music converter from ADS then it's a good unit. This one connects between the VCR and the PC and converts the data as it copies to drive or disk.
The one offered on Amazon is over twice the cost, but it is designed to accept the VCR tapes and DVD's directly.
For starters check your mini-DV cam if you have one. Some come with a feature called "pass through". In nut shell you hook the VHS deck to the mini DV cam and it will convert it to digital which can then "Pass though" to the computer over firewire or record to digital tape. If you have one like that you already have all the hardware you need and one of the best ways to convert VHS available. Check the manual as it will undoubtedly mention it, you can post the model number here and I'll look it up for you if you are unsure.
I've written an article for someone in your situation that goes into extensive detail about the different options and things you need to know before you purchase anything. It's a little old but still applies:
Bottom line is you need to first consider how much time and effort you want to put into it and what kind of budget you have.
Quote:
Go out and purchase a VHS to DVD table top converter
Stick to standalone devices if you can find one. Might be hard at this time. The reason why in a nutshell is the protection scheme on commercial VHS commonly referred to as "Macrovision" is in fact just an error on the tape... Macrovision the company actually holds a patent for this. This error when you try to record a commercial copyrighted tape from one VHS deck to another will cause all kinds of visual problems because of deficiencies in the VHS format.
Digital recording devices like capture cards and DVD recorders are unaffected by this...... except... they are programmed to look for it. Unfortunately many really old tapes will have errors on them especially if they were viewed a lot, stored improperly. Viewing this on tape on a TV may not even produce any problems but when you go to capture with a digital device it may interpret these errors as the real MV protection making the capture unusable.
If you purchase a device that is prone to these errors the only way to fix it in most cases is to use devices commonly used to circumvent the real MV or a TBC. The dual decks have no where for you to get this into the chain so if it's prone to this and this problem crops up you'll have no way of fixing it.
Those dual decks are usually the cheapest things they make as well but at this point in time finding a decent VCR is going to be hard and the VCR is the most important piece in the entire chain. You'll most likely find either really cheap decks like the dual ones or really expensive professional decks in the thousands... nothing in between. Good Luck!
Location: Jonquil City (aka Smyrna) Georgia- by Atlanta
16,259 posts, read 24,766,887 times
Reputation: 3587
What I have decided to do for now is go with the VHS to DVD copy machine. I will just run everything off to DVD and then figure out how to get it into a computer to edit some other day.
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This error when you try to record a commercial copyrighted tape from one VHS deck to another will cause all kinds of visual problems because of deficiencies in the VHS format. 
