Don't Throw Out Those Videotapes - Converting VHS Tapes to CDs, DVDs Involves More Crash Than Burn

The Wall Street Journal ^ | Wednesday, July 30, 2003 | WALTER S. MOSSBERG

[STFrancis]

First of all, if you are converting VHS to digital format, there is no point burning it to DVD, you can not increase the quality of the picture by changing the format, so you might as well go with converting it to VCD or SVCD format and save a bit of money.

Actually, there is a point. Videotapes degrade after about 5-10 years quite rapidly and by burning them onto DVD memories are preserved. A lot of older DVD players (1 1/2 years+) don't know how to play VCD's. And that's where a DVD comes in handy. Now you have your homemovies from 20+ years ago for another 20+

[Paul C. Jesup]

What about 800 by 600? Hmmm...

[discostu]

800 x 600 good for old tiny monitors. On a 17" I can handle smaller icons. I still get to spend some time there for testing (that's the MS standard, all UI must be on screen at 800x600, given that most developers seem to like their letters to be measured in microns that's a free bug you can write on almost any screen the first rev).

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

I have a Micron PIII 866 Mhz PC with 384Mb of SDRAM with a 40 Gb hard drive. I paid $59 for a Dazzle DVC-80 USB Video Capture card. Using Pinnacle Studio version 7 to capture (the bundled MGI VideoWave software is useless) and Nero Burning Rom v5.5.9...I was able to easily transfer 40 hours of VHS home movies to CD in VCD format in about a week of evenings at the PC. The Pinnacle software lets you edit scenes, dub audio, add titles and soundtrack background music and add dozens of nifty transitions to get a professional looking end result. The Pinnacle and the Nero are easily gotten with Kazaa.

Yes it is a somewhat involved process but it is well worth the effort and not nearly as difficult as the author would have us believe.

[Paul C. Jesup]

I take it, without your glasses on, everything, including the TV is blury.

[BlazingArizona]

apple = harware good
management = a bunch of leftist extremists

Be that as it may, this is the sort of job you need a Mac for. OS X and the Mac hardware are highly optimized for creating media.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

I did figure it out.

Me too.

Did your Dazzle come bundled with the MGI Video Wave software? I found it to be very problematical. To put it not so politely...it sucked. I chucked it for the Pinnacle Studio version 7. After that it was like eating ice cream.

[discostu]

Depends on the range. Mine is stigmatism, fairly light in the right eye more serious in the left. Under 5 feet is bad, over 20 feet is bad. In between is fine. Up close it's more eyestrain than blur, though focus is wierd (not blurry just wierd, I can't explain it better, when I told my optomotrist he said "classic stigamtism symptom"). Further away it tends to get blurry.

I have to marvel at the skill of lensmakers though, when I first got my glasses I spent hours playing with taking them on and off checking out how they did nothing in my good zone but changed thing in both my bad zone, really impressive and they're actually thinner than my non-corrective sunglasses. In the last 10 or 15 years this field has made huge strides, I have no idea how they do it but it sure is cool watching my wife's glasses get thinner and thinner (as compared to being a kid and watching my mom's glasses get thicker and thicker).

[alexandria]

I have a client with a setup just like yours after she "upgraded" from her cd-rom/rw to a DVD burner. After installing the burner software (it came with Nero 5.5) the DVD/R drive was not recognized, the burner either. Found out that Dell demensions HAVE to use the Roxio/Adaptec cd creator software cause it comes with the dell and writes a registry value that is not removed if the software is. Had another Dell deminsion with a DVD reader have "problems" after upgrading to Roxio 6. I switched it back to the ver. 5 that it came with and "boom" picked it right up again. I guess the ver. 6 still has bugs.

It is something to think on anyways.

[STFrancis]

Most Dazzle products blow chunks... Go to www.dvdrhelp.com and look up the ratings of dazzle products compared to the Canopus ADVC-100....

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Most Dazzle products blow chunks...

Probably true. But it was cheap and did the job for me. More...I cannot say.

[STFrancis]

And that's the most important part...

[firewalk]

.

[Dolphy]

I am in the market for a stand alone DVD recorder. Can you burn DVDs from a VCR? What brand did you choose?

[1Old Pro]

Pinnacle 8 is good as well

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Pinnacle 8 is good as well

I went with v.7.0 because I couldn't find a version of 8 that didn't run on Win XP.

I'm still amazed at how much better Pinnacle is than the MGI Video Wave software. Absolutely night and day. I've been doing up all my friends' wedding videos with soundtracks, scrolling titles and sharp looking transitions. It really dresses up what most people have on 8mm or VHS and you should see the smiles when they pop the VCD into their DVD player. Actually, it's not smiles...it's more like...

[Publius6961]

BUMP!

[1Old Pro]

It's too bad that the VCD can only hold about 23 minutes.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

It's too bad that the VCD can only hold about 23 minutes.

??

I get 60 minutes of home video onto each CD using a 352 x 240 / 29.97 fps at a capture rate of 280 kbps.

It's certainly not DVD quality but it is more than sufficient picture quality for home movies, etc...

[DoctorMichael]

Bump.