VHS to DVD

I am a newbie to movie editing and I need help. I have a VHS tape that I made and need to get it into a DVD before the tape wears out. I use it in teaching classes. I want to get the VHS video into the computer (G4) so I can record on a DVD. What kind and where do I get a cable to go from the VCR into the computer (if this is possible)? then back onto a DVD. I'm not too movie literate, so talk simple please. Thanks.

Not sure if you can do it directly via some magic cable. I bought one of these EyeTV TV tuners some time ago ( http://www.elgato.com/index.php?file=products_eyetvwonder ) which I used to convert my old videos to mpeg2. It's just a case of connecting the composite video leads from the video recorder to the eyetv box.

It depends on the quality of the original video though, but has worked well with some of my ancient ones.

I then used DVD Studio Pro to create the DVD, though you could probably just use something like ffmpegx and burn the output file in Toast.

You will need more than a cable to connect your computer to your VCR. You will need some type of video bridge. So that you can convert the analog video to digital video.

The easiest way is to use a miniDV video camera. Or get something like Dazzle.

...or even more simple: get a really cheap (under $100) DVD recorder like this one at Wal-Mart. I have an earlier version of this recorder and I've converted hundreds of hours of VHS to DVD without a single problem.

This assumes you do not want to edit the content of the tape, of course.

(Edit) ... or that it's copy-protected. This DVD recorder will not record Macrovision-encoded material.

Good luck!

Thanks

Thanks, folks. The DVD recorder sounds like it may be the way to go, since it sounds simple enough and I don't need to do editing. The VHS I want to record is one I created so it should not be a problem recording to a DVD.

Thanks!

I got a Dazzle a while ago, and it is not Mac compatible.

Kaylene Brown said:

I am a newbie to movie editing and I need help. I have a VHS tape that I made and need to get it into a DVD before the tape wears out. I use it in teaching classes. I want to get the VHS video into the computer (G4) so I can record on a DVD. What kind and where do I get a cable to go from the VCR into the computer (if this is possible)? then back onto a DVD. I'm not too movie literate, so talk simple please. Thanks.

Click to expand...

I bought an ADVC (Analog <-> Digital Video Converter) from Canopus. (www.canopus.com) but I actually ordered it new from Amazon.com. Ran me about $235, had mine a couple years but I think it is the ADVC-100. Newer model is the 110. There's others you can view on the Canopus website but it works great with iMovie. And it will work in the reverse so you can go from digital back to analog if you wanted

What do you do if you want to edit it?

caribiner23 said:

...or even more simple: get a really cheap (under $100) DVD recorder like this one at Wal-Mart. I have an earlier version of this recorder and I've converted hundreds of hours of VHS to DVD without a single problem.

This assumes you do not want to edit the content of the tape, of course.

(Edit) ... or that it's copy-protected. This DVD recorder will not record Macrovision-encoded material.

Good luck!

Click to expand...

I have a bunch of old 8mm that i imported into my PC but they're in avi format. How do I get the mac to recognize it? What is a codec?

Thanks.

Newbie considering switch to mac. I want to edit video but don't want to spend the time reimporting into the mac. I'll have to keep an old Windows machine for my quicken.

If you happen to have a DV Video Camera you can dump from the VCR to it and then to the Mac into iMovie or some such. I've done this several times myself.

It would be the MAC method of doing solving the problem

I have been on a quest for a long time trying to solve the how do I reduce the stacks of tapes that I have, and make them digital.

STOP LOOKING EVERYWHERE ELSE and reread the simple post telling you to buy a stand alone DVD recorder. It works great. I have been burning disks all weekend! I am even doing my old movies. Though it is nice to see the old family videos again.

I have owned the ADS-555 Pyro A/V link (which is the best for the price) But all you really want it for is the RCA jacks. Once you are done, what are you going to use it for??? A 160 dollar paperweight.

So after reading the post and thinking about it forever and a day. The light bulb clicked ON.

So that day I bought a LITEON LVW-1107HCI from Best Buy. It cost $119 including tax. It does everything that I need it to do. The quality of the DVDs seems to be very good compared to what I could do with the Pyro and a whole lot simpler.

I did the whole cycle. I burned a DVD with the recorder, ripped the DVD using Handbrake on the iMac, and edited some digits. I played the disk on everything I own. It works. Simple.

When I am done I am going to hook it up to my TiVO so I can burn DVDs for road trips of my favorite programs. One of the best $119 I have spent in a long time.

You can always spend more or a little less depending on the features you want on the DVD recorder.