Vhs To Dvd

[Bad boy Warrior]

Sorry if this is in the wrong section. Does anyone know how i can get VHS to DVD and what i need etc etc - like a beginners guide to what to do from step 1? i am running WinXP pro so not sure what i need and where to start.

thx

[yonu]

you can use a dvd-recorder on your tv or fget a good video capture card and hook your vcr up to it give this site a shot it is about vcd but the capture principle is the same vcdhelp.com

[purewaveform]

www.doom9.org is a great place to start learning. they have a guide called analog TV capture guide. http://www.doom9.org/capture/start.html it works for using a vcr. good guide and will give you the basics. Also uses free tools so you dont have to buy anything. You will also want to read up on avisynth, they are a series of "plugins" that allow you edit the video stream, like denoise, change brightness etc. Then you need a good prgram to turn the generated avi to mpeg, and then onto a DVD. There are several free mpeg2 converters, most notably TMPGEnc 2.5 is a free version. Then you need to get a program to turn the mpeg2 into a DVD, there are several out there, this one you will just need to download and find which ones you like.

[Takeshi]

There is a huge amount of info from the above websites and it's worth spending time to look through the articles.

A few comments:

1. TMPGEnc is free for encoding to mepg1 and only a limited trial for mpeg2.

2. Buy a good hardware capture card (internal or external) that directly encodes analogue to mepg2. Do not use software encoding for mepg2 if possible.

I myself use ATI AIW 9600XT and the mpeg2 quality is excellent at 5Mbs VBR.

Unless you're going to do a lot of video editing, it's not worth going through the avi intermediate step.

Some people use a DV to do that.

If you really want to do a lot of cleaning up of the old video then it's a lot more work involved.

3. You'll need lots of HD space and RAM, preferably a second fast HD, and a reasonably fast CPU.

[duomenox]

ATI has a great USB 2.0 TV Wounder adaptor that comes with some decent software to do video editing. I believe they still have a PVR program that will allow you to export to Mpeg2 (DVD Video)

Look up the TV Wounder at http://www.ati.com and find the best pricing at either of the two sites listed below:

www.pricegrabber.com

www.pricewatch.com

Pricegrabber is easier to use, but only has "mainstream" businesses, pricewatch has more of the mom and pop stores that give good prices and good service.

If all else fails, http://www.newegg.com is a pretty good place to get some online shopping done.

Sorry for the plugs, but these are the places I go to shop online and as long as I picked a store with a decent rating, I have never been ripped off.

If you were going to buy a dvd recorder for your home enternainment system, I know that Toshiba has a decently priced TIVO/DVD Recorder combo box for aroun $400. It comes with a free subscription to TIVO Basci (which is pretty much just the guide) but it also has a built in Hard Drive so you could get what you want and a DVR all bundled into one box... if you wanted :-)