VHS to DVD

Hi,I have some old VHS tapes that I would like to try and improve both the video and audio quality, and then burn to a DVD. I have no experience in doing this type of work.
Can any of you get me started with the basics? For instance, I would like to do the editing on my PC. Which video card/package would you recommend to allow me to do this on a professional basis? Which software(s) will allow me to clean up the videos and restore/improve the quality?
Kings Regards

Wojtek

 

If it's for personal backup (like you said) than I think it's ok to discuss it here. I did that, and it was an interesting experience. I will tell you though, you will NOT EVER get better quality than VHS. EVER. I've watched my dvd transfers on a standard def tv, and it looks pretty good, about the same as watching a VHS movie copied once to VHS. On a DVD player (especially on a computer) you will notice the quality degradation.
If you want to spend the money, I STRONGLY recommend the Canopus ADVC110. It not only doesn't require drivers, it has it's own dedicated hardware, supports an audio lock feature (which keeps audio/video in sync no matter the length of video, and I can attest that it does work), and it supports a little known feature that can bypass macrovision.
Just get the AC adapter for it, plug it into your computer via firewire connection, and use your favorite software capture/burn program. There's lots of tutorials on the net, it's really easy. Just DO NOT CAPTURE AS MPG, just let it capture as digital AVI, your quality will suck bad if you don't. You can do any post processing after that, but remember, you will NEVER get better than VHS quality ever.
Good luck and have fun. I did. It's really worth it IMHO to make backups of your old vhs movies, as they degrade over time, and this way you're digitally preserving your precious videos forever.
Oh, I recommend a stereo VCR as well, so you can atleast capture as stereo sound and not crappy mono if the movie is in stereo. I used Nero Vision for all my capturing and I'm satisfied with the results (I didn't have high expectations though). They're definitely watchable.

 

Sony Vegas, the Pinnacle products, and pretty much any other video software that costs about $500 will do wonders with your videos. When capturing, make sure to capture as an AVI (no compression) so you can edit your videos. If you capture in a compressed format, you'll lose quality each time you recompress, so it's best to capture the pure video. You'll need a few huge hard drives, since uncompressed video will probably be around 1GB per minute.

Use a SVHS player to transfer the video - the SVHS connection is just below component video connections and much better than the standard video connection.

 

The canopus that I mentioned captured as digital avi at around 13GB per hour of video. So for a regular movie it's only about 26GB.

 

Thanks for the clarification - I used an older video capture card that was not as efficient.

 

Thanks a lot for advice.
kings regards
Wojtek

 

As it realy is very time consuming for marginal improvements (at best), I'd just record them on a DVD recorder. Cheaper and easier than trying to use a PC.