Re: Copying a video cassette to DVD.
- From: Matt Giwer <jull43@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2007 03:08:49 -0400
Doug Laidlaw wrote:
My wife has "volunteered" me to burn a DVD from a VHS cassette for a friend. My player has plenty of outputs, but how do I input the data to my
computer? My video card has VGA, S-Video and digital flat monitor, but if
I am right, these are all outputs, not inputs.
That is correct. You need a new video card to copy from the tape. Again I suggest tigerdirect.com and use their search engine to find one. There carry several and I have been thinking about it for the same reason. I've got VHS tapes around going back decades.
There is a problem though. Analog VHS has a storage life that retains a useful copy measured in decades based on tapes made in the 1940s. A single byte error can make a digital copy worthless after the error. The archival life of CDs and DVDs is only about the stamped kind you buy pre-recorded not the kind you burn yourself. So after copying to DVD, store the tapes in a cool place instead of recycling them if it is valuable.
I think there is also a stand alone device to do this but the dud rate on blanks does not make checking the copy practical. If you burn from an iso file on the HD you can copy the disk back to the HD to see if there are read errors. If there there are errors it will be an error report and the copying stopped for the file being copied.
Given the not user friendly linux software to convert input files to something that can be read of a DVD player you want a card with hardware that stores the input to disk in MPEG format, which will most likely be called .mpg4 format. Problem is only the newest DVD players can read it or .avi or .divx format. Most of them still out there insist upon the original VOB format used on the movies you buy. So even if you get this far you are not out of the woods.
If the people she wants to give it to do not mind huddling around a computer monitor to watch, no problem, as long as they have a computer. There is an RCA $50 DVD player that will show avi although the ads only say divx.
And copying a tape to DVD is going to preserve the noise of the tape in digital quality. You can't get rid of it. I see how to minimize it but I know of no free or even home user software that can do it but again, I have not tried it. Maybe the hardware converters are smart enough to deal with it.
And as I have no actually gotten the necessary card and tried this myself that is about everything I know on the subject and take even that with several grains of salt.
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