Using all of DVD space when recording VHS tapes onto DVD

by DoomEad Mar 28, 2010 12:53PM PDT

I have over a hundred VHS tapes and have gone through them all noting down whats on each one. Then catorgorising them into different themes. Comedy Films and half hour comedy shows, Horror Films, Documentaries, Music etc. The length of each recording noted too. I'm soon going to be using Majix "Rescue Your Videotapes" to edit out all advert breaks and unwanted bits at the begininng and end of each recording to be left with a true length of time each recording is. Once this is done I will be left with a whole host of recordings of different lengths. My hope is to keep themes together as mentioned above.

So, say I want to start by recording my Comedy Films and half hour shows onto DVD single sided. Majix will let me compress recordings to some extent. But looking at this list of recordings within a theme to burn onto DVD have you guys any ideas on how to use the space on a DVD to it's maximum when faced with such a long list of recordings to record. Where and how does one start.

A friend said I could use MS Office Excel to write a spreadsheet and list all the recordings to do. Then write a formulae and Excel would tell me how many DVD's I would need to record them all. Then juggle all the recordings around and Excel would then say which recordings would go with which one on each DVD to maximise space and not be left with unwanted space or wasting DVD's.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

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You might be making this too complicated.

by ahtoi Mar 28, 2010 3:10PM PDT

Just go ahead and do some to see how it goes. A little practice may do wonders. But to tell you the true, I am not exactly sure what you are after. You have A tape with different themes. You now wants to separate them into individual themes and store them on dvd? Did I get that right? and you have many such tapes.

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Maximise space

by DoomEad Mar 28, 2010 10:23PM PDT

Am wanting to try and keep programs that are of the same theme onto a batch of DVD's. Fill one DVD with as many 1/2 hour comedy programs as poss or comedy films for example. Then get another DVD and continue burning these type of progs till finished with burning comedies. Once comedies are done move onto Horror films and fill DVD's with those type of films, same with music etc.

But the problem is, that with comedies for example, there are so many of these types of programs I have on VHS, all with different lengths of recorded time, I'm wanting to find an easy way of knowing which comedy programs to burn together onto one DVD so as not to waste space. Once that DVD is full then I can move onto another DVD and fill that one with comedy progs until all progs of that type are burnt to DVD.

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And that's one method of many...

by ahtoi Mar 29, 2010 1:25AM PDT

of what Bob uses, especially about using a DVR (personally I think it's a must). If you want a little practice first, maybe get some re-writable dvd discs to try it out. Of course using the computer to do edit and burn is also a method. We can come back to that if the first method is not what you like.

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Just completed this for my dad.

by r. proffitt Forum moderator Mar 28, 2010 10:37PM PDT

My dad had a box of tapes so I'll share. Let me lead off that I've written before that we figure 4 hours of work to get 1 hour of video onto DVD. Much of this time is just waiting for the machines to do their work and this last box proved again that this work is time intensive.

Here's what I did to drive that number down.

I used a DVR to capture the VHS content to the DVR's hard disk (NO PC USED FOR THIS CONVERSION.) Now I could hit play and the record on the VCR and DVR and let it run for hours.

After that step I could clip off the stray footage off the end of the DVR recording (about 10 minutes work tops) and then decide if I wanted that on a single DVD. For most tapes that's what I did. 1 tape to 1 DVD.

BEWARE that some tapes will have copy protection so I'll leave that as a warning so you can research more there.

It progressed on average 2 tapes a day with about 20 minuted of my time per tape.

I'm sure folk could spend a lot more time than that but here's the breakdown in time.

1. VHS to DVR = time of the tape. So an one hour tape means one houe.
2. SIMPLE EDIT = 20 minutes or less.
3. DVR to DVD = time of the tape. So another hour.
4. FINALIZE the DVD = 5 minutes.

This brought the time multiplier down about 2 to 3 rather than 4.

What you are proposing should cause you to spend the usual 4 hours per hour of tape.
Bob

Using all of DVD space when recording VHS tapes onto DVD

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