Re: [Nolug] VHS to DVD?

On Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 5:45 PM, Jonathan Roberts <gremln007@gmail.com> wrote:

> Although I wonder why a VCR plugged into a decent video card isn't easy
> enough for someone to do this themselves?

Maybe deceptively easy.... easy to get results, but (perhaps) a bit
tedious, or requiring trial and error, and a lot of work, to get
satisfying results. It might make sense to do it yourself if say you
have 50 VHS tapes, and prfessionals charge per tape. But for say 5
tapes, you could probably find someone to convert for less cost
than the hardware needed :)

Need a good video capture card, such as a Hauppage card, or external
device, whichever you choose needs to be supported by your system,
with inputs that match your VCR's output types (usually composite IN
for video and 2xRCA RCA IN for Audio), and a decent choice of VCR.
But the quality may not be so great, if the tape is not in shiny new
condition.

A professional service might have a better chance of picking the best
equipment to use for highest quality playback of your source, or
proper use of video filters and other equipment to "clean up" or
   exclude noise / static from the source
Then take care of tedious editing tasks, such as removing playback
of unused tape from the output.

Otherwise... there are some standalone decks on the market that have a
VCR and DVD player built-in, with the ability to record the VHS side
to DVD.

They are probably more convenient than using a capture card.
However, the output will have lossy compression (MPEG encoding
already done), and may be unsuitable for further editing.

If you have a large number of tapes, a VCR and PC capture card has
the problem that the capturing process will probably not
automatically stop when your VCR reaches the end of the tape...

--
-J
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