VHS to DVD. How the hell do I do it.

Superman · Post by **Superman** » 2004-03-10 01:46am

What do I need for this? I have a DVD burner so I need something that will allow me to connect my VCR to my PC.

Vertigo1 · Post by **Vertigo1** » 2004-03-10 02:24am

You need an actual video capture card to do this. Be sure it says CAPTURE instead of "tuner". A dedicated capture card will let you watch TV as well, but in the past dedicated "tuner" cards just let you watch, and had VERY POOR capture capability. Matter of fact, I have one of those ancient cards sitting around gathering dust.

I *highly* recommend the Leadtek TV2000XP. EXCELLENT card, works great out of the box, no driver instability, etc. Software is very intuitive. I just hope you have a very fast computer because if you decide to edit the streams (you can capture to full mpeg2 quality if you like, but remember that it will not look any better than the original media) it will take a decent ammount of time to render said movies. Using the editing software provided, it takes me 20 minutes to render an edited 23 minute video down from 30 minutes (removing commercials). Keep in mind that these are my following specs:

AMD XP2800+ (2.08GHz)
Leadtek K7NCR18-D Pro (fastest nForce2 mobo you could get at the time)
2x 256MB PC2700 DDR in dual-channel mode (512MB total for the math wizards out there)
Maxtor 160GB (7200RPM, ATA133, 8MB cache) EIDE HDD

Now also keep in mind that you can capture into just about any video format, not just mpegs. I prefer mpegs due to the superior video and audio quality, and they're just easier to mess with all-around. Also, when you're capturing, do not use coax! Coax makes the picture look like utter SHIT compared to s-video, and even composite. I've yet to see a VCR with an s-video output jack so you're stuck with composite, which does an OK job. You might want to tweak the coloring a little before rendering because it'll be a little brighter than usual when you watch it on TV. Be sure to burn to a DVD-RW disk FIRST and test it on your stand-alone player. This will just reduce the risk of turning your "expensive" DVD-R media into a 4.7GB coaster.

Now once you've captured and edited your media, you'll want to burn it. Don't think you can just dump it into Nero and think it'll work on a stand-alone player. Forget about it. You need to convert your video stream into something your stand-alone player can read right off the bat, and thats VOB. To do that, again you'll have to use the included software (Ulead's MovieFactory) to do this. The software is OK, but don't expect to make any animated or decent looking menus with it. I'm currently looking for something better. One thing I *really* like about this program is that it gives you the choice of burning it right away, storing the VOB files in a given directory so you can burn them later, or creating an ISO image so you can mount it in a virtual drive and play it through your DVD player of choice. What you choose is up to you.

This card only set me back a whopping $47 at newegg, and it had no s/h charge attached.

Superman · Post by **Superman** » 2004-03-10 02:38am

My burning software is Roxio. You think that's okay?

Vertigo1 · Post by **Vertigo1** » 2004-03-10 02:48am

Won't do it directly either.

btw, Roxio = bloated garbage.

Superman · Post by **Superman** » 2004-03-10 02:50am

Yeah, it was free and came with my hardware. So I need to buy the new software too... ok.

Vertigo1 · Post by **Vertigo1** » 2004-03-10 03:00am

Superman wrote:Yeah, it was free and came with my hardware. So I need to buy the new software too... ok.

I recommend trying the demo first and see if you like it before buying.

www.nero.com

<- been using Ahead Nero Burning Rom since v4.0