Everyone has told me it’s possible, I have the equipment to do it…
Latest greatest computer, firewall, a zillion cords…etc…
But no one, nowhere, can answer this question for me…
I will be converting my VHS tapes to DVD.
Apparently I need to play the tapes through the video camera to get them into the computer. Once they are in my computer I will make Cd/DVD copies…
The question is:
HOW LONG WILL THIS TAKE???
Will I have to run the VHS tapes in real time?
ie. If I have a VHS tape that is 6 hours long, will it take 6 hours for it to download to my computer??
Just took some Digital Movie classes and even the instructor didn’t know…:rolleyes:
You’ll have to run it in real time at first, to capture it in a raw uncompressed format. Compressing it to a more useable format will add more time to the process. How long it will take will vary considerably depending on the quality of the final file.
Boy, your instructor must not have ever actually made a digital movie from a VHS tape, then. To get your VHS tape into your computer in digitized format, you will have to play it, and capture it to the computer, in real time. One of the easiest ways to do this is to buy a ReplayTV, hook up your VCR or camcorder to the inputs, and record the footage onto the ReplayTV, then copy the resulting MPEG-2 file to your computer using the ReplayTV’s Ethernet connection and a program like replayPC or DVArchive on your computer. You can also capture directly to MPEG-2 with an ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon card, or any other video capture device, but the ReplayTV option allows you to use your computer for other things while the capture is occurring. (Technically you CAN do other things while your computer is capturing a video with a video capture card, but you’ll almost certainly lose many frames of video and possibly have skips in the sound.)
For capturing digital video sources (a digital camcorder, for instance) you will be able to copy the footage over a FireWire or USB connection, but it will still occur in realtime.
One you’re done with the raw capture, you can edit out parts you don’t want using software like TMPGEnc or Womble MPEG2VCR. Then you can create your DVD in an authoring program and burn the disc. Overall, expect the complete process to take at least twice realtime at the very least, and possibly several times this if you have to re-encode your captured video (to change the resolution, for instance, or change the quality).
I have a Panasonic dvd recorder e30 & a one hour vhs to dvd copy takes one hour & one minute to produce a functioning dvd.
That’s a dvd player like machine. However, if you run the vhs through your computer, you won’t get much better than vcd quality without runing it through a few programs as vhs doesn’t have much resolution. Thats why I use the dvd recorder instead, it produces better than vhs quality.
You’re saying you get better than vhs quality while copying from a vhs??? I find that unlikely. Regardless of the technology, a copy is not going to be of higher quality than the original.
Capture video from the tape onto the computer. Real time.
Edit the video. How long this takes depends on how much editing you need to do.
Encode it as MPEG1 for a VCD, or MPEG2 for an SVCD or DVD. With a 2 GHz CPU, you should be able to do MPEG1 in real time. Allow 2x to 5x as long for MPEG2. If you have a hardware encoder (All-In-Wonder, etc.) you can do MPEG2 in real time.
Author the disc and burn it. Much faster than real time, depending on the speed of your drive and media.
“You’re saying you get better than vhs quality while copying from a vhs?”
No, I said that when the Panasonic E30 makes a dvd from vhs, it makes it better than the original vhs quality. The e30 uses a VBX format, unavailable, as far as I know, to computers for dvd writing.
I’ve done about 120 VHS tapes to DVD conversion (my personal collection). Here is what I can tell you:
Yes you have to play the VHS tape in real time. 6 hours tape means 6 hours capture time.
Capture in Huffyuv if you want full quality. This also means a large HD, about 40GB per 2 hours captured video at 1/2 DVD quality. If you want full DVD quality more like 60GB per 2 hours.
After capture time there’s the encoding time, converting the capture to DVD compliant MPG. I have athlon 1700+ and it takes about 2 seconds per 1 second video to encode. So if movie is 2 hours encoding will take 4 hours.
Then there’s the compiling and burning time. Usually about 1 hour per 4 hours video to compile and burn at 4x speed.
So for 4 hours video (2 normal movies): 4 hours record, 8 hours encode, 1 hour compile & burn = 13 hours.
So take the full length of minutes of all your VHS tapes and multiply by 3 that will give you a good indication.
Right. You’re making a DVD FROM a VHS, and you’re saying the DVD is higher quality than the original VHS? That’s what you seem to be saying, no matter how many times I read it. And I still say it’s impossible, no matter what technology you’re using.
“You’re making a DVD FROM a VHS, and you’re saying the DVD is higher quality than the original VHS?”
Sure, your computer can run it through several filters to make it look better. Looking better means, but is not limited to, no dropouts, no flicker, improved sharpness & contrast, etc.
