Jump to content

Video To Dvd


RichardB

Recommended Posts

Bought a video of "Sheffield at War - The Blitz".

Don't have a video player.

Anyone able to transfer from one to the other please ? or advise of someone that can ?

Thanks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

PM'd. Thank you very much.

I've got a copy of that.

If you PM me your address I'll stick it on a DVD and send it in a jiffy bag.

HD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bought a video of "Sheffield at War - The Blitz".

Don't have a video player.

Anyone able to transfer from one to the other please ? or advise of someone that can ?

Thanks.

Converting VHS to DVD is an analogue to digital electronic process and it can be a bit of a bind

Firstly you need some hardware, - a video capture card, as well as some video editing software.

Secondly, as the digital encoding is done "on the fly" as it is recorded in real time if you want big, high pixcel video quality then you need a pretty good computer witha fast processor.

Thirdly, as it is a real time process, done at 1x speed copy from the VHS tape, for long videos it can be very time consuming, often taking 4 or 5 times the playing time of the video to produce a finished DVD

Finally, the quality of the finished DVD will only be as good as the image quality of the original VHS tape, which often is not that good by todays standards we expect of HD TV, Blue Ray and the like.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Or just except HD's offer

I assumed that he had.

Hilldweller has saved someone with the necessary hardware and know how (and that could have been me or you) several hours worth of work there

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I assumed that he had.

Hilldweller has saved someone with the necessary hardware and know how (and that could have been me or you) several hours worth of work there

Copied in real time from VHS to DVD recorders.

I am gradually re-recording all my old VHS stuff before it degrades any more, 'so just made a copy for myself as well.

Simples !

Of course the quality is a bit duff but the original transcription from film is nothing to write home about.

No copyright issues because we both have the original bought VHS tapes.

HD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am gradually re-recording all my old VHS stuff before it degrades any more

HD

I am sure I have read a report somewhere on the "life" DVD R and DVD RW discs, and it claimed they were not that great, - perhaps only 10 years or so.

This did not apply to manufactured DVD discs as they are not made in the same way.

If this is true then, given only reasonable light use, it is likely that the VHS tape will retain the recording just as well as the DVD.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am sure I have read a report somewhere on the "life" DVD R and DVD RW discs, and it claimed they were not that great, - perhaps only 10 years or so.

This did not apply to manufactured DVD discs as they are not made in the same way.

If this is true then, given only reasonable light use, it is likely that the VHS tape will retain the recording just as well as the DVD.

In a similar sort of way, I own audio recordings of The Beatles Abbey Road album on LP record, cassette tape and CD, all are bought versions, - not copied to blank tape or CDR.

The LP is the oldest and has had by far the most plays and wear, - it still plays perfectly with no scratches or hiss, - possibly some loss of high frequency but that may just be the ageing of my ears. You can still hear all the high frequency effects on the long fade out of "I Want You (He's So Heavy)"

The cassette tape is next oldest and has had second most wear. It has not been mangled up and is in physically good condition BUT it is totally unplayeble as it seems to have lost its magnetic recording and now only plays very faintly even at full volume. The high frequencies have gone and there is a lot of hiss and noise.

The CD is the newest but has still been played many times. As would be expected, the sound quality is indistinguishable from when it was new.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Actually you don't need a capture card. And you would have a job getting one in a laptop! There's a device on the market which plugs into your video recorder and then into your computor. They look a bit like this:

It includes software to "capture" the video. The biggest problem is dropped frames when capturing. They will drop when the video signal is poor or if other background programs are running on your computor. When they do the video will look jerky or freeze. Most video software will "clean" up what is captured. Correct things like colour problems or brightness or contrast. However none of them can get rid of the flashing effect you sometimes get on VHS tapes, where random waves of colour flash on the screen often at the top of the screen. Another thing you will see when capturing VHS is a distorted image line at the bottom of the screen. This is not picked up by the TV set, but will be seen on your computor. It's caused by the head switching as is not a fault. TV sets or video's mask this out when showing a video.

Of course the biggest problem when recording on either a DVD recorder or on a computor VHS, is the quality of the VHS player. Most struggle with playing back, due to the fact that video recorders are never set up right for tracking videos. If the tape was recorded on that machine you have a good chance of it playing back OK. But most of us will have had quite a few video recorders, because they tend to go wrong often. The combined VHS to DVD machines on the market are not very good as the video player wont be ste up tracking wise for your tapes. If you are doing a lot of tapes then you will need plenty of Servisol Video 40 to clean the video heads!

And if you are thinking of copying commercial films etc from VHS to DVD etc then forget it. Not because of anti-copying or copyright issues. Just because it's cheaper and quicker to buy the DVD! There's plenty of cheap ones on E-Bay and Amazon!

As Dave was saying making a DVD on a computor will takes ages. My manual for Magix Movie editor says it could take 8 hours to "code" a long movie. And then it speeds up taking about 2 minutes to then "burn it" to the the disc! But it will look like a proper commercial film DVD and be playable on all players. Wheras for speed the DVD recorder is quick, but looks rubbish and many won't play back on others DVD players.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If I play many of my extensive collection of VHS tapes directly to my TV I often find that the picture "tears" at the top portion of the picture. This cannot be cured by tracking adjustment.

A previous TV I owned explained in the handbook that this was due to the electro-mechanical nature of the VHS player causing the sync pulses to be slightly variable.

To counter this the TV had a special setting for VHS playback which allowed a slight spread of sync timing.

My modern TV does not have this facility but I have found that if I route the VHS signal via my DVD recorder this deals with the problem as it is obviously more tolerant of sloppy sync. The DVD outputs to the TV via HDMI and all it requires is that the DVD recorder is switched on.

HD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Actually you don't need a capture card. And you would have a job getting one in a laptop! There's a device on the market which plugs into your video recorder and then into your computor. They look a bit like this:

The device you show here is effectivly a video capture card, it performs the analogue to digital conversion, - albeit in the form of a USB dongle. It does not have to be a card fitted into a dock or socket inside the computer as would normally be understood by the word "card" in this context.. Such devices are relatively cheap for what they do and do it fairly well.

Nevertheless, it is a piece of hardware and you do need it before you can do any sort of video capture from either VHS tapes or older analogue video cameras.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It includes software to "capture" the video. The biggest problem is dropped frames when capturing. They will drop when the video signal is poor or if other background programs are running on your computor. When they do the video will look jerky or freeze. Most video software will "clean" up what is captured. Correct things like colour problems or brightness or contrast. However none of them can get rid of the flashing effect you sometimes get on VHS tapes, where random waves of colour flash on the screen often at the top of the screen. Another thing you will see when capturing VHS is a distorted image line at the bottom of the screen. This is not picked up by the TV set, but will be seen on your computor. It's caused by the head switching as is not a fault. TV sets or video's mask this out when showing a video.

Dropped frames is a real bind if it happens.

The only way I have found around it is to reduce the picture size and quality which sort of defeats the object.

It seems to be caused by slow running computers and other programs using processor capacity at the same time, - but I am not convinced it is as simple as that.

My older XP computer, with a single core 2.2MHz processor has never dropped a frame, while my newer Windows7 computer with dual core 2.6MHz processor frequntly does, although changing settings or using another piece of capture software can sometimes correct this.

I have never managed to remove those distorted lines from the bottom of the picture.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And if you are thinking of copying commercial films etc from VHS to DVD etc then forget it. Not because of anti-copying or copyright issues. Just because it's cheaper and quicker to buy the DVD! There's plenty of cheap ones on E-Bay and Amazon!

As Dave was saying making a DVD on a computor will takes ages. My manual for Magix Movie editor says it could take 8 hours to "code" a long movie. And then it speeds up taking about 2 minutes to then "burn it" to the the disc! But it will look like a proper commercial film DVD and be playable on all players. Wheras for speed the DVD recorder is quick, but looks rubbish and many won't play back on others DVD players.

Yes, if the same film is available on DVD as well as VHS then it is often simpler, quicker and even cheaper just to go out and buy a new copy.

The time taken to copy to disc, having done a 1:1 real time capture from VHS, is usually determined by the digital to digital conversion time which follows.

For editing purposes, most capture cards save the captured video as .avi or .mpg files as a computer can easily handle these and edit them.

However, to record to a DVD which will play on any player it has to be in standard DVD format (MPEG-2) so it has to be converted again, - this process is usually called "authoring" by the software which does it.

Now this conversion can take a long time, - it is a very processor intensive process so a fast processor helps, but, for a feature length film the file size is several Gigabytes, - the final MPEG-2 has to be under 4.7Gb to fit on the disc, but the capture file it comes from can be bigger than this.

I know when Stuart has copied some videos to DVD he has set off before going to bed and just left it to get on with it overnight, the disc being ready by the time he gets up next morning, - as you say History Dude it can take up to 8 hours and this is the recommended healthy number of hours sleep per night so it fits nicely.

Now, if it will play universally on any player or not once recorded, - I have never managed to work out the difference between +R and -R discs, which may have something to do with it. But then again I have not a disc which has recorded correctly in the first place and is undamaged which has ever failed to play in any player I have put it in.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is the thing that I was refering to:

I have got one and a capture card on my main PC.

To get rid of the distorted lines at the bottom and top you need to either mask it or zoom in with video editing software. I have tried several video editing software and I find Movie Edit Pro the best to use. I prefair the earlier and cheaper versions to the newer ones, such as the 2004 and 2005. Both of which you can pick up cheap on Amazon and they might work with windows 7 too! Well I was able to install the software to my laptop which uses Windows 7.

They ain't easy to use. I tend to work in the timeline mode most of the time. Here's a music video I created with it! The bottom and top distortion gone; There's two on that page! The video quality had to be reduced down though to upload them to the site! The Rolf Harris required multi edits and lots of different bits of film. The Nillson track used two films on top of one another. The titles are generated by the software itself.

http://therealchart.blogspot.co.uk/p/number-one-1960-to-1990.html

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Got it, watched it, enjoyed it, Thank you.

I've got a copy of that.

If you PM me your address I'll stick it on a DVD and send it in a jiffy bag.

HD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's a music video I created with it! The bottom and top distortion gone; There's two on that page! The video quality had to be reduced down though to upload them to the site! The Rolf Harris required multi edits and lots of different bits of film. The Nillson track used two films on top of one another. The titles are generated by the software itself.

http://therealchart....60-to-1990.html

That's a very impressive site History Dude, with an equally impressive record track list spanning 30 years.

Is it your site?

Is it the ultimate intention to make a suitable video for all of the many tracks listed?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am sure I have read a report somewhere on the "life" DVD R and DVD RW discs, and it claimed they were not that great, - perhaps only 10 years or so.

This did not apply to manufactured DVD discs as they are not made in the same way.

If this is true then, given only reasonable light use, it is likely that the VHS tape will retain the recording just as well as the DVD.

Tell me about it ! :angry:

I've tried various makes of blank DVD with variable results. Nowadays I only use one brand, Verbatim (AZO) made in Taiwan, not China and I've had a 100% success rate at burning disks. I understand that the longevity of these disks is proven according to reviews.

I only use DVD- disks because these seem to work with everything I've tried them on.

HD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tell me about it ! :angry:

I've tried various makes of blank DVD with variable results. Nowadays I only use one brand, Verbatim (AZO) made in Taiwan, not China and I've had a 100% success rate at burning disks. I understand that the longevity of these disks is proven according to reviews.

I only use DVD- disks because these seem to work with everything I've tried them on.

HD

I have not seen the report about the longevity of Verbatim discs in particular, but I have used these discs and found them to be very good so I can well believe it.

I also own a Verbatim USB 1Tb external hard drive which I use to back up my computer on. This too is proving to be very reliable, and given what I use it for, - whole system image backups, it needs to be reliable and have a long life as well. I previously had a Seagate one, which gets lots of good reviews, but became unreliable after a couple of years.

I have used both the + and - versions of recordable and rewritable DVD's and never had any playback problems with any of them on any sort of player provided they have recorded and finalised properly in the first place, and that the disc surface is not damaged.

However, everybody you talk to seems to have incompatibility playback issues at some point and it seems to be down to this + / - issue in some way.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I always used -R disks until I gave up on life about five years ago, I now use a pencil whenever possible and practise joinie-upie writing - not very technologial but very satisfying.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's a very impressive site History Dude, with an equally impressive record track list spanning 30 years.

Is it your site?

Is it the ultimate intention to make a suitable video for all of the many tracks listed?

Yes it is my site. And yes it is my intention to have a complete collection of videos for all the number ones. Of course that's not going to be easy! Prior to 1964 film of the acts performing becomes rare. However I have completed a DVD of 1976 already and I have a big collection of the other tracks from many years. Some of the early ones where no film of the artist will be found at all are going to be hard to solve. But apparently you can use the "Sims" game to make the video. The Sims "people" can even be given the face of the artist in question, if you have several images of them. But from my initial work on it Sims is very hard to use. So how that's going to pan out I don't know.

But I have stereo videos that even MTV have not got!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes it is my site. And yes it is my intention to have a complete collection of videos for all the number ones. Of course that's not going to be easy! Prior to 1964 film of the acts performing becomes rare. However I have completed a DVD of 1976 already and I have a big collection of the other tracks from many years. Some of the early ones where no film of the artist will be found at all are going to be hard to solve. But apparently you can use the "Sims" game to make the video. The Sims "people" can even be given the face of the artist in question, if you have several images of them. But from my initial work on it Sims is very hard to use. So how that's going to pan out I don't know.

But I have stereo videos that even MTV have not got!

That sounds brilliant History Dude.

I will look forward to revisiting your site at intervals to see how this very demanding project you have undertaken is coming on.

Keep up the good work! ;-)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's a video I have done using the Movie Editor 2004 software. It shows how good the software is. This uses two video films and a stereo soundtrack to produce it. The old mono sound is muted. In fact the video of him singing needed several cuts to get him to lip-sync with the stereo music. The video footage of John Denver also was cleaned up and the smudges from the top and bottom got rid of. It took a lot of adjustments to get it looking right. And I had to do it twice over!! As the first time I outputted the file to MPEG1, M.E.2004 stopped responding after making about 40 seconds of the file! Then crashed :wacko:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...