How can I transfer VHS to DVD, please?
I want to transfer my VHS cassettes to DVD. The videos are mainly of older films or TV series that aren't available on DVD, and are in PAL format (I'm in England). My PC is a 3.2 AMD, with Windows XP, and 512MB RAM, and I have a capture card somewhere, which I'm going to dig out later tonight.
What software do I need to do this, please? I have WinDVR somewhere, and that did this in real time, on my slower PC (a 1.8 AMD), but I want the best quality I can get (though of course I realise that the bottleneck here is the VHS casettes' quality, I won't get better quality than the quality of the recording on the video tapes themselves). Does WinDVR's realtime read-from-the-TV-card-and-write-the-.mgp-file method give the best possible quality, or would I be better off reading into an uncompressed .avi, and later on converting the .avi into a DVD compliant .mpg? Obviously the latter would be better if WinDVR's realtime mode produced substandard results, but does it?
And what software should I use to create DVD menus?
Finally, I don't have a domestic DVD recorder (that plugs into the TV, and acts just like a VHS recorder), or of course I could use that by just connecting the DVD-Recorder to the VHS and recording from VHS to DVD. What advantages/disadvantages are there to doing this rather than creating the DVD on a PC? For example, presumably when using a PC, I can set scene starts (where you go to when you skip forward a chapter), plus bulk record a full casette, then later on divide the file up into episodes (can I do this with WinDVR, or whatever software?). Can a domestic DVD recorder do this? What other differences between a DVD recorder and a PC doing the same job are there?
And is now a good time to buy a (PAL) DVD recorder, or are there still commercial arguments over which type of DVD to support (I don't want to buy a Betamax style DVD recorder that's obsolete in a few months time).
Thanks for any answers.
What software do I need to do this, please? I have WinDVR somewhere, and that did this in real time, on my slower PC (a 1.8 AMD), but I want the best quality I can get (though of course I realise that the bottleneck here is the VHS casettes' quality, I won't get better quality than the quality of the recording on the video tapes themselves). Does WinDVR's realtime read-from-the-TV-card-and-write-the-.mgp-file method give the best possible quality, or would I be better off reading into an uncompressed .avi, and later on converting the .avi into a DVD compliant .mpg? Obviously the latter would be better if WinDVR's realtime mode produced substandard results, but does it?
And what software should I use to create DVD menus?
Finally, I don't have a domestic DVD recorder (that plugs into the TV, and acts just like a VHS recorder), or of course I could use that by just connecting the DVD-Recorder to the VHS and recording from VHS to DVD. What advantages/disadvantages are there to doing this rather than creating the DVD on a PC? For example, presumably when using a PC, I can set scene starts (where you go to when you skip forward a chapter), plus bulk record a full casette, then later on divide the file up into episodes (can I do this with WinDVR, or whatever software?). Can a domestic DVD recorder do this? What other differences between a DVD recorder and a PC doing the same job are there?
And is now a good time to buy a (PAL) DVD recorder, or are there still commercial arguments over which type of DVD to support (I don't want to buy a Betamax style DVD recorder that's obsolete in a few months time).
Thanks for any answers.
Post edited by ewgf on
Comments
Just an idea...
Aside from that I am all in favour of TechnicianSi's suggestion. Never failed in our family before but you have to make sure that the card supports what you are doing, perhaps go with a combination of SVHS.
Skarpo
:-)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/LG-16x-External-Writer-Inputs/dp/B000COJ08C
for less than the price on Amazon I might add. It allows connection of external AV devices such as VHS.
I'll let you know how it goes when it arrives.
if i want it as a computer file, i record to dvdrw rip onto the puter then wipe the disc and reuse :)
See, he's not just a manic miner. He'll nick anything...
How did you get on with this ?
I also bought one of these, arrived today, went to install it and my normal cd drives/dvd re-writer have totally disappeared ?
Anyone got any ideas how to get my drives back ?!