I have a collection of VHS pre-recorded tapes and I wish to convert them to DVD. Does anyone have any experience with this process? What video capture card and what software have you used?

I use a pixelview TV card, which also has both a composite video and a s-vhs video input.

The included software lets you record in either mpeg-1 or mpeg-2, mpeg4, at whatever common bitrate and resolution you like.

You'd then need some sort of DVD authouring software to create your dvd's!

The TV cards are cheap (paid less then 2000 Baht for mine), only drawback is that they don't have a hardware mpeg encoder, so it eats up quite some CPU cycles when encoding video!

Cheers,

Monty

There are TV cards and there are AV-in cards. The TV cards can tune in on TV with an aerial while the AV-in cards only accept video-in, but are cheaper (around 600 baht). It's not that hard, but takes time and is a tedious process, especially if you have a lot of videos to convert.

Ask yourself if it is really worth it.

Home movies or rare TV programmes are worth converting,

but for moveis you are better off looking for a DVD version.

The quality of the picture will be so much better.

If you have alot of tapes a VHS to DVD recorder might be the easiest route. You can find alot of them second hand as most people buy them, do all their conversions, then have no use for them anymore.

If you have alot of tapes a VHS to DVD recorder might be the easiest route. You can find alot of them second hand as most people buy them, do all their conversions, then have no use for them anymore.

Agreed, this is the least painful and fastest way to go about transfering your video's. Look for a vcr and dvd recorder with super vhs inputs/outputs for preserving the best quality. Most players already have them. Doing it this way is a straight dub, no need to import footage into a computer, possibly converting it, and burning dvd's afterwards.

Now is the time to convert any important video tapes.

If you wait too long you will not be able to find a working vhs machine,

and your tapes will probably be unplayable due to mould.

Most of my tapes are pre-recorded versions of old tv series some of which may be still obtainable. However as I enjoy playing around with computers getting them converted will be something I will enjoy doing. Thanks for the helpful suggestions I think a visit to Pantip is the next stage.

It’s been some time since I started converting my tapes and most of them have converted successfully. I now have a stack of pre-recorded tapes which I will be binning shortly. However several of my tapes will not allow my DVD recorder to record them as I guess they are copy protected. As I have no wish to pay again for something I have already paid for is there any way around this.

How did you end up transfering the material in the end?

How did you end up transfering the material in the end?

I used a Panasonic Video Cassette Recorder (Player) for my video tapes and recorded them direct to a Pioneer DVD Recorder direct to the DVD rather than the hard drive. This was very straight forward with the majority of the tapes. I have a number of tapes which the Pioneer just says cannot record so I assume that is due to some sort of protection. My next step is to link the Panasonic VHS cassette player into my computer via a Snazzi DVD Pro video capture card and use some sort of software to overcome the protection.

My next step is to link the Panasonic VHS cassette player into my computer via a Snazzi DVD Pro video capture card and use some sort of software to overcome the protection.

You'll probably need a macrovision remover to transfer from VHS to your recorder.

My next step is to link the Panasonic VHS cassette player into my computer via a Snazzi DVD Pro video capture card and use some sort of software to overcome the protection.

You'll probably need a macrovision remover to transfer from VHS to your recorder.

Thanks for your help I will try and source one locally and if not, hope that I can obtain it from the USA or UK. I note most of the UK ones use a scart I/P and O/P so that would pose another problem as my connections are RCA.

My next step is to link the Panasonic VHS cassette player into my computer via a Snazzi DVD Pro video capture card and use some sort of software to overcome the protection.

You'll probably need a macrovision remover to transfer from VHS to your recorder.

Thanks for your help I will try and source one locally and if not, hope that I can obtain it from the USA or UK. I note most of the UK ones use a scart I/P and O/P so that would pose another problem as my connections are RCA.

This might be worth a try before getting a macrovision remover. It's something I used to do a few years ago to copy protected videos.

The macrovision signal that protects the tape is automaticaly removed by a televisions decoding system. On some, but by no means all, TV's the AVout socket on the TV is taken from a point after the decoding has taken place, so you can play your protected video into the TV then take the signal out of the TV's AV out socket (which is minus the macrovision) into your DVD recorders input. Hope this makes sense.

I've been retired from the TV trade for a year or two now so I couldn't sugest what 'modern' TV's might work, the last time I tried it was probably about 10/12 years ago.

My next step is to link the Panasonic VHS cassette player into my computer via a Snazzi DVD Pro video capture card and use some sort of software to overcome the protection.

You'll probably need a macrovision remover to transfer from VHS to your recorder.

Thanks for your help I will try and source one locally and if not, hope that I can obtain it from the USA or UK. I note most of the UK ones use a scart I/P and O/P so that would pose another problem as my connections are RCA.

This might be worth a try before getting a macrovision remover. It's something I used to do a few years ago to copy protected videos.

The macrovision signal that protects the tape is automaticaly removed by a televisions decoding system. On some, but by no means all, TV's the AVout socket on the TV is taken from a point after the decoding has taken place, so you can play your protected video into the TV then take the signal out of the TV's AV out socket (which is minus the macrovision) into your DVD recorders input. Hope this makes sense.

I've been retired from the TV trade for a year or two now so I couldn't sugest what 'modern' TV's might work, the last time I tried it was probably about 10/12 years ago.

Thanks for the tip. I've tried transferring some of my old VHS cassettes to a Philips DVD recorder. Some are ok, others are copy protected. Will give your method a go, if I can find the AV out on the TV.