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General discussion

How Do I Get Movies From VHS to DVD

Jul 22, 2005 3:34AM PDT

Does Anybody know of a way to get my old VHS movies, the hollywood movies such as Star Wars and Meet The Parents, to DVD. I have tried using those VHS/DVD Dual Deck machines but they don't work because of copyright protection. Is there anyone to bypass that and get my movies onto DVD for space saving?

Discussion is locked

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Yes.
Jul 22, 2005 3:47AM PDT

Hello,

You need to record them with your computer and then burn them to DVD.

Simple as that. Luckily not many manufacturers have caught on to the PC video capture cards as a viable option for recording DVDs and VHS tapes.

Hope this thought helps.

If you need more info, click on my profile link at the bottom to contact me.

Take Care,

Shawn Mosqueda
WireSmart LLC

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CNET weekend project...
Jul 22, 2005 11:53PM PDT

Hello,

As per your email to me, yes the CNET weekend project will work. It will convert your VHS to DVD.

However, I have used Pinnacle Studio for audio/video capture and it is not that easy to use. Or to be more precise, the user interface is that of a video editor vs a personal video recorder. A PVR interface allows you to watch the a/v source like a TV and record while watching.

After reviewing many PVR products (for my upcoming "The Complete Home Theater PC Guide - Everyone's Guide To Building A Home Theater PC" e book), the easiest PVR to use is LeadTek's WinFast PVR which comes bundled with their WinFast TV line of video capture cards. The only drawback we found with WinFast PVR was that while recording, if you wanted to pause to cut out content, the whole video displayed pause right where you paused it and did not allow you to continue to see the feed to know when to un-pause when your content began again. Other than that it was a breeze to setup, configure and begin recording.

We also like Ati's Multimedia Center PVR because of the ease of use (more importantly, you could pause the recording while watching the program, unlike many other PVR products we looked at. WinFast PVR was the only other with that capability), but we had lots of glitches with our particular setup. The video feed would just stop in the middle of recording and while watching/recording, the audio did not match the video (we were using Creative's Audigy 2 Value Card and AOpen AW850 Deluxe audio cards) giving us a type of old Japanese movie affect. However, on playback the audio and video matched up fine. After countless hours with tech support for both Creative and Ati, we gave up and reinstalled LeadTek's WinFast video capture card.

By the way, our system did not have a VIA chipset which apparently causes issues with Ati's hardware and/or software.

That said, I would pass on the Pinnacle Movie Box, Ati TV Wonder products (unless you want to try tackling the issues we had, which may or may not affect you) and go with LeadTek's WinFast TV 2000 line. while watching/recording, the audio did not match the video (we were using Creative's Audigy 2 Value Card and AOpen AW850 Deluxe audio cards) giving us a type of old Japanese movie affect. However, on playback the audio and video matched up fine. After countless hours with tech support for both Creative and Ati, we gave up and reinstalled LeadTek's WinFast video capture card.

By the way, our system did not have a VIA chipset which apparently causes issues with Ati's hardware and/or software.

That said, I would pass on the Pinnacle Movie Box, Ati TV Wonder products (unless you want to try tackeling the issues we had, which may or may not affect you) and go with LeadTek's WinFast TV 2000 line.

When it comes to recording your VHS tapes. You will need the WinFast video capture card and a DVD burner. I would recommend "WinFast TV 2000 XP Expert" edition because it comes bundled with VideoStudio 7 or 8 SE and DVD MovieFactory 2 or 3 SE. VideoStudio is great for editing your recording, while DVD MovieFactory is perfect for burning to DVD. MovieFactory allows you to create great navigation menus.

To actually go into a tutorial on using all these programs in conjunction with each other is to difficult to do on this forum as it requires screenshots. My ebook goes into great detail on this subject and explains aspect ratios to screen resolutions, audio/video codecs and the process needed for achieving the the highest quality recordings.

Hope this helps and if there is anything else I can do to help either post here or contact me via my profile link below.

Take Care,

Shawn Mosqueda
WireSmart LLC

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I have another question
Jul 25, 2005 5:33AM PDT

I have a mac, will I be able to this even with a mac?

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Recording Home Video
Jul 25, 2005 4:44PM PDT

This is one frustated user.

I am using a Plextor AV-100U converter which I have been struggling with for over 6 months. The included Video software (intervideo WinDVD) is junk.

I have tried all the following software:
MS Moviemaker
Roxio v7
ULead v 7+9
ULead Movie Factory
Nero v 6.6

None of these work well, & Nero gave me a hard crash today on my (very) high end computer.

There is so much sh--- going on with different Audio, different video formats etc.

I tried to return the Plextor, but no deal.

Then I did the right thing. I walked to a neighbour, and burned all my VHS-C tapes to DVD on his Mac G4 with barely a wink.

Then I bought a Pioneer hard-drive DVD Recorder, & plugged my VCR in to it. Perfect copies.

Don't try to do home video. You will end up 10 years older, & very pissed off.

Oooohhraa!

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Sounds like...
Jul 25, 2005 7:07PM PDT

Hello,

Sounds like everything ended well for you. This is good. However, maybe you might ask your friend what hardware and software he used on the G4 to accomplish this and post it here for this member?

That would be more of a help than letting us know how the PC didn't accomplish your tasks.

I have used a PC with Win2K and burned multiple DVD's from recording both 8mm, VHS and regular broadcasting. Have not had a problem.

It might be a simple conflict between the different programs you have used or anything else for that matter. PC's give you the flexibilty to screw up the computer either by choice or by mistake. Mac's on the other hand make things more user friendly and harder to screw up, if not impossible.

Anyway, thank you for your post, we look forward to your additional information.

Take Care,

Shawn Mosqueda
WireSmart LLC

If you would like to contact me, click on the profile link below.

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Burning DVD's
Jul 28, 2005 3:41PM PDT

I believe my problem with the PC can be traced to the Plextor AV100-U Converter. I used a different USB Port, & reinstalled the 9/2004 driver, and finally got Intervideo WinDVD to burn a VHS-C Tape to DVD.

Interesting that Nero 6.6 still did not find the Plextor (I am using a Dell 8400 with 2 Gig of RAM, and a new RAID Array.)

I will look in to the Mac question.

Cheers.

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What Software and Hardware did you use?
Jul 26, 2005 2:31AM PDT

I was wondering what software and hardware you used on your friends mac g4 to get your VHS to DVD. Also did you convert commercial movies such as Star Wars or Meet the Parents from VHS to DVD. If you could also tell me in steps how you did accomplished this using a mac I would be very grateful. Thanks.

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DVD from VHS
Jul 28, 2005 3:49PM PDT

I believe the Mac G4 was using the LaCie FastCoder box, with iMovie & Final Cut Pro 5.

Hope that helps.

Cheers.

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What Do I Do
Aug 5, 2005 1:47AM PDT

What Do I do with the LaCie FastCoder box to get my movies from VHS to DVD. If you could send me a step by step walkthrough on how to do it I would be extremely grateful. Also are you sure I could do movies like "The Rock", "Star Wars", "Indiana Jones" and others without any problems? Thank you.

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VHS (or SVHS) to DVD via PC.
Aug 8, 2005 2:15AM PDT

Hi.
I use the Plextor PX-M402U to transfer the Analog Data in Digital form via USB2 channel to my PC.
Win DVD Creator 5 will then provide me with the necessary tools to edit the starts, the ends and the adertising.
In Edit Mode, in the Time Line, I mark the true start, delete the beginning. Then, at the advertising point, I insert a chapter. At the end of the advertising, I mark again and delete from start of chapter. This accolate the start of this video portion with the preceeding end of chapter.
I contiue doinig this for 5 episodes.
When this is finished, in Author, I remove the unwanted chapters which decrease from 10 to 5 without loosing data. I can insert the Titles at that point. Then comes the burn.
Hope this helps.