[linux-help] Re: archiving VHS on DVD

["David Carmichael" <dec2955@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I can tell you from experience... try to find the original source on DVD....

Many TV shows had been or soon will be released on DVD...

Second.. you will get a better transfer if you go from VHS to
DVD-RECORDER... not PC ... you can get a fair DVD+R recorder from Wal-Mart /
Sams for around $200.00

I have stated this before in this forum and got yelled at.. but too many of
the TV capture devices on a PC can not do the full farm rate correctly...

Standard broadcast TV NTSC/525 fitting 30 frames into a second, If your VHS
tapes were recorded at SLP speed then you only have 262 lines at of data....

Many capture cards can capture this but only at 30 frames per second which
in reality cuts this down to about 200 lines of resolution....  Do you see
what is happening here..... and it will get worse...

While most Set-top DVD-Recorders. TIVO's and other Digital recorders have a
custom MPEG chips which are able to convert near full frame rate.

Other wise if you really want to do it on your hardware....

[1] Turn off all factions that would access harddrive such as virus
protection, screen savers and any thing else.... [you might even want to
unlit from local network!!]
[2] Turn off all TSR's that might load not related to your capture card..
[3] If you have memory utility set as much as you can for disk cache.
[4] Once you start the record program set the on screen image to the
smallest window that you can. [the larger it is the more memory is used]

Good luck!!

I gave up and purchased a ReplayTV device and for the VHS tapes that I
really wanted to save copied to my ReplayTV and then transferred to my PC
for DVD burning.... you can get a 40 hour Replay device for  less than
$100... but if I was to do it today I would purchase a Set-Top DVD
recorder... Like the RCA for sale at Sams for $230.00....


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "gLaNDix (Jesse Kaufman)" <glandix@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <linux-help@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, August 18, 2004 10:37 AM
Subject: [linux-help] archiving VHS on DVD


> anyone have experience archiving VHS tapes onto DVDs?  i have a ton of old
> home movies from my mom (and soon my gf's mom) that she wants archived on
> DVD ... i have all the equipment (ATI AIW 9600 non-pro, Hauppage
WinTV-Radio,
> DVD+/-RW, VCR :P) i need, but haven't been very satisfied with the results
so
> far ...
>
> (note: yes, i do realize the AIW capture capabilities don't work in linux
.. i
> was initially using the software that came with the AIW in XP to try to
> capture, but ran into some problems, see below)
>
> i've been really pleased with (gasp) the windows software that came with
my
> AIW for authoring DVDs (menus, titles, etc), but whenever i captured from
the
> VCR, the picture was either choppy (from too many frames dropped when
using
> higher res) or it was "blotchy" (when using the lower res) ... i figured,
> since my home theatre is run by linux, that i could probably get better
> captures in linux because of better performance, stability, etc, but i'm
not
> completely sure where to begin capturing in linux ...
>
> at this point, i would like to capture the videos in linux, then take them
> into XP and use the software (can't recall the name) to put them all
together
> on a DVD and burn ... i'd like to get the videos as close as possible to
the
> original quality so they can be enjoyed at their current quality level
before
> they deteriorate anymore!
>
> one of the biggest questions i have is what the optimum resolution would
be
> for capturing ... obviously a dvd resolution will be higher than the
original
> vhs, so i'm not sure which to capture at to prevent too much scaling or
image
> quality loss when playing back on a set-top DVD player ...
>
> suggestions?  tips?  all are appreciated!
>
> jesse
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