Converting VHS -> DVD

[yelo333]

As the title says, I have been messing with getting this to work on and off for a few months...

Note that I am unsure which forum to put this in, but, as I have already bought the hardware, and my problems now are software-related, I thought it might be a good idea to place it here. I apologize in advance if I posted to the wrong forum...
What I have:

-Hardware:

AXP 2000+
512mb ram
2 HDs: WD 40gb 2mb cache/WD 120gb 8mb cache(40gb benches 50mb/s,120gb benches 55mb/s in HDTach)
SAA7130-based capture card(branded as AverMedia DVD EZMaker PCI), supporting composite and svideo
radeon 9000w / the rage theatre chip, so it supports composite in/out, svideo in/out.
Toshiba SD-R5112(branded as maddog 4x dvd-r 6-in-1 drive)(does not support +R, only -R)(DVD-RW drive)
Liteon LTR-40125S(branded as TDK 32/10/40B)(firmware in use overclocks drive to 40/12/50 I believe -- 100% stable as is)(CD-RW drive)
DVD-R media to spare...
Stereo VHS tape player connected to composite-in on SAA7130

-Operating system stuff:
Windows 2000 SP4 on a 15gb partition on 120gb drive
Gentoo linux(/ on 15gb partition,/home on 40gb partition, both paritions being on the 120gb drive)

-Free space:
40gb drive 100% empty and unpartitioned
120gb drive has 50gb of unpartitioned space avaliable at the end of the disk.

-Various software I own:
Pinnacle instant cd/dvd 7(FAR awhile back...)
neoDVDstandard4(OEM, came with SAA7130)
nero 6 oem suit 1(the one w/out mpeg2 encoding)(came with bundled with dvd burner)
nero 5.5 burning rom(only supports burning to image drive ATM, since my tdk burner is no longer recognized as a TDK b/c of the firmware patch)(not installed, since it also does not coexist well with nero 6)

Of course, the full complement of free software has been tried, as well (VirtualVCR, Virtualdub, mencoder, transcode, etc)

-Things I have tried without success:

do the complete operation in neoDVDstandard4...the quality of neoDVD's encoding is subpar, and, while workable if necessary, is not an optimal solution. the audio was very bad. maybe line-in volume was too high? Another problem with this approach is that any form of editing is almost impossible. since I am working with home movies, there are many, many parts that would best be removed before burning to DVD.

any form of capturing via Virtualdub does not seem to work with this capture card. no frames are captured at all.

I am unable to get nero6 to capture at anything higher then something around 320x240. I am not sure if this is ok or not.

Using VirtualVCR to encode to a huffyuv AVI file, and then edit+encode via Pinnacle Instant CD/DVD _almost_ worked. However, Instant CD/DVD tends to perform illegal operations during the encoding stange when the avi file is encoded with this codec.

Using neodvdstandard4 to capture to a .mpg file, and then edit+reencode via instant cd/dvd also just didn't quite work. late in the encoding stage, instant cd/dvd will perform an illegal operation. this issue with instant cd/dvd "causing" errors seems to be even after fresh reinstalls of windows without any excess or bad software installed.

A multitude of other things I have since forgotten...

For me, the "best" soultion would be a 100% linux approach, but I just can't seem to even get a decent capture yet. note that viewing in tvtime looks beautiful, so I know it _can_ be done, I'm just not quite sure which mix of software to use here. a windows approach is fine, and I might as well experiment with that first.

Any suggestions? An approach which does not involve spending any more $$$ would be preferable, but I am in no way against buying some more software to do the job.

A bit about the source: they are all standard play(2hr) VHS tapes. 1 tape -> 1 dvd would be nice, if possible. Very poky in parts(home videos), so a bit of minor editiong would also be nice. low quality, since they are both getting old, and were recorded on a now ancient video camera.(1990?) About 30 tapes in all.

So, now, my problem in a nutshell: I need a stable way to transfer VHS tapes to DVD.

Another alternative I am contemplating:

Record w/ VirtualVCR to huffyuv. Use Virtualdub to convert this to xvid. burn those xvid files to dvd, and buy an mpeg4-capable dvd player. Any thoughts here? Specifically, which mpeg4 dvd player would I buy at this point?

As you can see, I am kind of lost in this maze of software+hardware...And, I need suggestions...Thanks!

 

[mundane]

I haven't done much work at all with capture, but the few times I've needed to get from tape to DVD I've used Microsoft Movie maker (mostly). I do the capture, order the clips, do trimming, add a soundtrack, and then export it. Then I used my DVD authoring program of choice (was DVDlab pro until my trial ran out; great program, but out of my meager price range. I now use Cyberlink powerproducer, which is inferior, but came with my cheap capture card) to create and burn the .ISO. This method works, but it's not spectacular.

In a previous post to these forums, someone recommended KVCD http://www.kvcd.net/portal/index.php which claims you can get 6-10 hours of video onto a DVD without major quality loss. I really haven't examined it since then. But this would cut down the number of discs you'd require.

I'm actually fairly eager to hear other responses, especially concerning the authoring step.

 

[Wheezer]

You are using an ATI AIW to capture correct? If so you might want to try and use the native ATI software ATI MMC. This site has a bunch of very good information on capturing, he frequents the dvdrhlep.com forum and is very knowlegeable. I personally use an AIW 9700pro and use it to mainly capture TV...which turns out VERY nice. I set up ATI MMC according to his guide, and things have worked flawless.

 

[racefan]

Get ulead movie maker or dvd maker and that is all you will need to convert the captured image and convert it to DVD.

 

[yelo333]

Originally posted by: diegoalcatraz
I haven't done much work at all with capture, but the few times I've needed to get from tape to DVD I've used Microsoft Movie maker (mostly). I do the capture, order the clips, do trimming, add a soundtrack, and then export it. Then I used my DVD authoring program of choice (was DVDlab pro until my trial ran out; great program, but out of my meager price range. I now use Cyberlink powerproducer, which is inferior, but came with my cheap capture card) to create and burn the .ISO. This method works, but it's not spectacular.

Hmm, I'll have a look at Movie maker. my limited experience with it is that it's rather crash-prone...And, I'm running win2k, so actually using it would be...hard

In a previous post to these forums, someone recommended KVCD http://www.kvcd.net/portal/index.php which claims you can get 6-10 hours of video onto a DVD without major quality loss. I really haven't examined it since then. But this would cut down the number of discs you'd require.

Well, I do not believe in magic here. 6-10hrs w/out noticable quality loss is a claim that, IMO, is rubbish. If it wasn't, then there would be a whole lot more software supporting such long-playing dvd's...And, it's $2.99...Any success stories you would like to point me to?

Originally posted by: Wheezer
You are using an ATI AIW to capture correct? If so you might want to try and use the native ATI software ATI MMC. This site has a bunch of very good information on capturing, he frequents the dvdrhlep.com forum and is very knowlegeable. I personally use an AIW 9700pro and use it to mainly capture TV...which turns out VERY nice. I set up ATI MMC according to his guide, and things have worked flawless.

Actually, it's not an AIW. it's a regular r9000, just the style w/ the rage theatre chip. So, it's got video-in/video-out capabilities, it's just not an AIW(IE, no tuner/remote/etc). However, the quality is pretty ugly. if at all possible, I would like to use my PCI vid. capture card.

A second problem is that it's actually a sapphire OEM card, so I don't have an mpeg2 license to go with the MMC. this leaves me in the dust for mpeg-2 encoding w/ MMC. Does the MMC work with the mpeg2 decoder/encoder that comes with powerdvd? if it did, then that would be a plausable solution for me.

Originally posted by: racefan
Get ulead movie maker or dvd maker and that is all you will need to convert the captured image and convert it to DVD.

Hmm, I believe I can locate an unused copy of movie maker. I should be able to give it a shot next week. I'll report back then. Thanks for the tip!

 

[mundane]

Originally posted by: yelo333

In a previous post to these forums, someone recommended KVCD http://www.kvcd.net/portal/index.php which claims you can get 6-10 hours of video onto a DVD without major quality loss. I really haven't examined it since then. But this would cut down the number of discs you'd require.

Well, I do not believe in magic here. 6-10hrs w/out noticable quality loss is a claim that, IMO, is rubbish. If it wasn't, then there would be a whole lot more software supporting such long-playing dvd's...And, it's $2.99...Any success stories you would like to point me to?

I stopped looking into it when I saw that there was a cost just to read up on it. I think I first heard it mentioned here: http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=33&threadid=1486787&enterthread=y . Reading some other posts, they compare the quality to 'better than vcd'. I probably wouldn't try to compress DVDs to it, but you might be able to get away, quality-wise, since your source is VHS. But heck, DVD media is dirt cheap now, so there might not be much benefit in researching it.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

Hmmm...that was me, recommending KVCD...although when I learned about it, two years ago, it was still freeware... What can I say - I have DVDs full of films in KVCD format, and indeed, you can fit a lot of them in 4.7 GB.

 

[mundane]

It looks like (understandably) trying to cover their bandwidth costs, they charge a one-time fee of 2.99 for access to the forums. I believe you need that access to read most of their help files, as well as download their software. It's their option to charge for access, and I accept that.

 

[jackschmittusa]

My wife runs Winxp and has an old Radeon8500 VIVO that she uses to capture from video tape. She captures with good results using the ATI software. She has used a Samsung stereo VCR as a source, now uses a Go-Video dual deck. She usually makes VCDs from tape. Quality is similar to tape and they play on almost everything. And BTW, you can put a lot of VHS quality video on a DVD.

 

[Jeff7]

I capture video, mainly from TV, but I've also done it from VHS, with a Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 350. The PVR-250 does the same thing, but it lacks audio/video outputs; so it's cheaper.
It captures to MPEG2, using a hardware encoder.
I edit the files with Ulead Videostudio, with pretty nice results. I wish Videostudio had the filters that Virtualdub has (de-noising would be nice, the TV signal out here isn't the best), but it still does a good job of working with and making MPEG2 files (and DVDs).