I don't even have that kind of stuff...

I have been taping since the early 80's, but I always edited the adverts out.

Bugger.

D-VHS was introduced in 1998.
I had my first dvd player in 1998 and it was clear that DVD was going to replace VHS even then.

I have some early-to-mid-80's American tv programmes transferred to DVD including American adverts. Annoying when you are watching the programme but fascinating!

That's what I like about it, it's great to be able to watch DVDs on your laptop

It's the random-access part I like. Being able to choose just the right video clip or programme, rather then winding through 2 or 3 hours of tape.

I always chapter-ise my DVDs when I author them

That's useful, particularly in movies where you might just want to watch one scene.

Oh I don't transfer movies, I just replace them on DVD. I transfer stuff like TV appearances, music clips and the like.

Is transferring stuff from video to DVD a complex process? I was thinking of doing it.

You need some way of capturing the video and digitising it and compressing it using mpeg2. The cheapest but not the best quality is to buy one of the all in one USB capture devices.

Example

http://easycap.co.uk/

Oooh noooo... avoid Easycap... DRAEDFUL piece of rubbish.

Get something with decent support and quality, like from Hauppauge or Pinnacle.

Not recommending any of these (it was just an example), the best solution is a DV converter from Canopus or a quality DV camcorder with AV in. Capture using DV compression (needs about 4GB for 20 mins), then mpeg compression in other than real time using vbr to keep the file sizes small.

...which is exactly what I do

I play my tapes on my Philips VCR with timebase corrector, and take an s-video cable and two phonos into my old digital camcorder on DV passthru.

I use a simple capture program called WinDV (VERY low system overhead) then drag the captured files onto a Sony Vegas timeline. I then make little edits to tidy things up and if it is music video, often replace the audio with a better source.

I always aim for 2-hours per DVD and that seems to suit the source material quality.

I might look into something like that (though maybe not that exact device). Do any of them work on a Mac as that's what I use?

What about movies anf tv shows that are not out on dvd?


Easiest method is to scart connect your vcr to a dvd recorder -preferably one with a hard drive.

If , like me , you have several dozen camcorder tapes , you can copy them all to the hard drive then edit them if necessary and resequence them before burning to dvd at high speed.

If your experience of using PC's or anything that relies on software from Microsoft or Windows matches most peoples them I doubt you'll want to waste time copying tapes with one.

Maybe Mac is more reliable

What's that? I don't have a DVD recorder though so it would need to be connected to the computer if I was to do it.

Shame you don't have a dvdr .
Would be far more straightforward .

You would press Play on the VCR and Record on the DVDR.
Thats it.

All my movies are out on DVD... my collection is mostly music video and TV shows.


I'm using PC and funnily enough I don't have any problems whatsoever. Must be because I know what I'm doing.

Some do.

There's definitely less options for Mac though.

I'll check 'em out when I have time. It might be a good idea, particularly for old recorded TV shows I want to keep or anything that hasn't been released on DVD.

I found my Panasonic DVDR especially useful as it could record to reusable DVD RAM discs.

These then went into the PC for re-authoring and finally burning to DVD-R.

I had two machines (E50 and E60) and both died prematurely.

This is how I copy my VHS videos on to DVD-R discs.

I use a Pioneer DVR 530H which has a 160GB Hard drive and a DVD-R drive.

I also have 2 VHS video recorders one is a Sony which Iuse for rewinding and fast fawareding and a Panasonic which I use for playing the Videos when they are being recorded on to the Hard drive.

Here is how I go about copying VHS videos to DVD.

First I connect the Sony VHS video recorder and put a scart that has a red, yellow and white input on one end in to one of the scart inputs on the Sony video recorder then I get an AV cable that has the red, yellow and white connetion on it in to the front red, yellow and white input on the Pioneer DVD recorder.

I then find the correct AV input on the DVD recorder. I then put a VHS video that I want to copy in to the Sony VHS recorder and then find the programme that I want to copy or jut rewined the VHS video to the beginning.

Then I eject the VHS Video and diconnect the Sony VHS video recorder from the mains and and that the scart out of the Sony VHS Video recorder.

I then get out the Panasonic VHS video recorder and put the scart in to one of the scart sockets on the back of the Panasonic VHS video recorder and plug it in to the mains.

Then I put the VHS video in to the Panasonic VHS video recorder and press play on the Panasonic VHS Video recorder and then recored on the Pioneer HDD/DVD recorder.

Once the programme has finished I will press stop on the Pioneer HDD/DVD recorder and eject the video and turn off the video recorder.

I will then edit the programme and take out the adverts if there are any and then will copy the programme from the hard drive on to a DVD-R disc or if the programme is longer than 2 hours then I will split the programme on to more than one DVD-R disc.

Then I will use a CD/DVD pen to writte what is on the disc and then I will put the disc away in my folder.

VHS = WVC (worldwide video communication). VHS is great in that I can share my films with anybody without asking what sort of equipment they have. No need to check if they have DVD or can they play it back - VHS is universal. I lend may tapes to friends and VHS just does what it has always done - given easy and reliable entertainment. The passage of time has not dulled that.

I use VHS and the popular Betamax format too and if I went without either I would have missed so many wonderful films it would be sad to think about. I don't have a panel type TV.

Are DVD-RAM discs still around? I think they were a bit of a rarity and not many computer DVD drives or DVD players supported them.

I have a 530 too.
It also writes to DVD+R and dual layer discs of both formats

They are still around but not as easy to find as other formats , basically because nobody was interested in them except Panasonic.
Some other recorders will play them even if they won't record on them .
But they are useful if you want to edit material and you don't have a hard drive recorder , although they are limited by capacity.

Of course , in theory you could use discs of any format then copy to the PC , edit on the PC and copy back.

The beauty of RAM discs is that you can perform all your editing on the disc itself without using the PC as RAM discs are basically mini hard drives with all the flexibility although you'll still need to copy to PC in order to burn back to -/+R

A hard drive recorder makes it much simpler as its not limited by the capacity of a single blank