Here is what I have. An (inexpensive) Toshiba DVD player/recorder. And a (ancient but works fine)Goldstar VHS player/recorder. And finally a smalll Magnavox 15 in. LCD tv.
One evening I tried everything I could using these componants to transfer the vhs tapes I have to dvd but no success at all. I'm able to get the VHS player to play the tapes, so it seemed I should be able to record them somehow to the Toshiba or possible to my laptop. But whatever I tried couldn't get there.
What I concentrated on was hooking the VHS player to the Toshiba, Toshiba to the TV and recording from the Toshiba but never knew if it was hooked up right. Anyone tell me an easy way to do this or is it impossible with what I have? thanks.
transferring vhs to dvd....can anyone give me advice on how?
(10 posts) (8 voices)-
surfidiot
MemberPosted 14 years ago # -
WobblyWombat
MemberI think it should be possible to connect the VHS Out to the aerial (RF in?) plug on the DVD machine, so in effect using the VHS as an aerial. Then you would have to tune in the DVD to the signal from the VHS (as if searching for a TV station) while playing a tape on the VHS.
This assumes the DVD machine has a suitable RF in plug... BTW I'm assuming that the ancient VHS doesn't have the tri-colour A/V leads? (Red White Yellow?)
Good luck, I hope to do this myself one day.
Posted 14 years ago # -
That should work, though it may vary if you're in the US vs the UK. What model is the Toshiba?
Posted 14 years ago # -
mrg3dit2002
Memberi tryed a few years ago to do what u r tryin to do.after a few days i gave up,i only could get a "bootleg" looking copy of the movie :(
a few days after that a friend came over and for some reason put the copy in to watch it and seen what it was,after watching it he told me i needed to put something between the vcr and the dvd recorder to "intercept the copywrite signal".i never did try again to copy the movie but it did get me thinking how would this work!?!?and also would it work!?!?i think mabie (my friend)ment by "device" mabie something like this http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103095&y=13&y=9&x=11&x=8&retainProdsInSession=1&retainProdsInSession=1or mabie another vhs player or dvd player mabie anything between the player and recorder.all i can say after all that is good luck and let us know the outcome!!!
Posted 14 years ago # -
goodgotd
Memberif at all possible use the audio/video output on the vcr to the corresponding recording inputs on the dvd-r, and s-video if they have it. (don't expect more than a minor difference, though) if it's not a stereo vcr you may have to use a y-cable to feed both channels on the dvd recorder from the single audio out on the vcr. then hook your tv to the dvd-r's output.
if you have prerecorded tapes with macrovision anticopy, you may need a vertical synch box to record them- the problem will show up as funny colors and the picture 'tearing' diagonally. another vcr won't help. if you recorded the tapes no worries.
once you get it to record a playing tape, then you need to look at the problem of getting a full movie on a dvd-r, see if there is a high-compression 'long play' mode to record in, or divx/mpeg4. expect fairly poor quality, as vhs in standard play mode resolves 200 lines horizontally at best- the old tv's couldn't display that, the most of them. the broadcast 'standard' was 640x480- theoretically 320 lines. ha. s-vhs didn't come close.
I use a video capture box with a built-in hardware divx encoder, but those are rare now. most capture cards/dongles capture mpeg-2 and you have to compress from that to divx/xvid.
I'm recording as much as I can of the stuff I recorded earlier fresh off the dish dvr if I have a choice between that or the older vhs copy as it's better quality.
feel free to ask more, I'm a disabled pro.
Posted 14 years ago # -
watcher13
MemberGoody's right, Surf, as usual. I've worked for 3 tv stations myself, and you're almost certainly getting defeated by copy protection.
http://www.howstuffworks.com/question313.htm
I've haven't tried mrg's suggestion, but what he's saying is that the seperate RF modulator box - when used between the vcr and the dvd burner (or any two similar devices) - won't pass the anti-copyright signals that are used to screw up the recording (at least some, I don't know if it's effective on all types). If you want to make sure if you're hooked up properly, waste a little space on the disk and try to record anything else that comes out of the VCR, like it's (usually) blue "no signal" screen and/or some of the menu items that show up on your on screen display - like the time, "play", "rec", etc. - or, best yet, a home made tape that you recorded off the tv. If you can record that stuff, but not anything from a commercial tape, you have your answer.
As to your laptop, it's the same thing. If you can see and record anything but the output from a commercial tape, then it's copy protection. If you can't record - or don't even see - the non-commercial stuff, then you've done something wrong.
The VHS standard was 240 lines. The reason it used to look so good was not really the number of lines, but the fact that the losses in over the air/antenna tv were so high that it made the tape look good. Also your TV station was sending you shows from sources than weren't that much higher quality than a commerical video tape. And also, because many cable companies didn't put out the highest quality signals either, so video tape used to look good. When you compare it to what's available today, you start to see the flaws. I doubt your old Goldstar has S-Video, but Goody's again right, it's significantly better. If you've got it, use it. It's a little black 5 pin jack on the back and it's marked. Requires a special cable you can get at Radio Shack, for one.
As to movie length, I don't really see that as a problem. Your burner should have various speeds, just select one that's as close to the running time of the movie as you can. Goody's mostly referring to your computer, however, but it's similar. Just pick the best compression that will fit on your disc. It's not like you'll be losing that much. Again, you're taking the movie from a relatively low quality source. You're not going to get blood out of a stone. You just pick the settings that will give you as close to the size of the disk as you can get away with, which minimizes any extra losses. The reason you want the best settings that suit your purpose is that every time you copy, you're going to lose a little, but you can often make it practically unnoticable. If you can't get what you want, here's a free DVD compression software, but I haven't gotten around to try it.
If you really can't get it to work, you can always play it back out of your computer into your Toshiba unit - assuming your laptop also has the output jacks. Of course, that's definitely doing it the harder way.
Posted 14 years ago # -
Ziffelpig
MemberSurfidiot:
What you have is not enough. Even if you could manage to make the transfer from your VCR to your DVD recorder you would still need to defeat macrovision.(if your originals were commercially produced)You would then need a TBC(time base corrector) to eliminate macrovision and generally clean up your source.
I went another way to convert my VHS library because even now TBC's are expensive,but some can be found rather cheaply in some high-end VCR's if you know where to look, rather then just buying a standalone.
I went the easiest way for me. I used a video capture card a Hauppage PVR 250,hooked up to my old RCA camcorder using an s-video cable and audio jacks. The hauppage encodes to mpeg format, and eliminates macrovision, and does a very nice pain free job.
You do not need a high end computer, as it encodes using hardware not software. Finally go here for a wealth of advice on resolution, capturing, and improving your source http://www.videohelp.comPosted 14 years ago # -
NolafromNZ
MemberSurfidiot, way over here in New Zealand, a new product has just come on the market called a USB Easycap Video TV Audio Capture Adapter 10070. It consists of a USB stick for your laptop (or desktop if close enough) with the 3 usual RSA cables (yellow red and white)plus an S-Video cable (optional). You play the video in your vhs player and record it onto your laptop. I have just bought one which cost me all of NZ$34 through Trade Me (our eBay) and they are being snapped up as soon as they appear. So, I haven't yet tried it but going by the feedback they work very well.
Now with NZ being so far behind USA, UK etc, there must be an equivalent or better over there, lol.
PS In case you are interested in the specs:
Complies With Universal Serial Bus Specification Rev. 2.0.
Supports NTSC, PAL, Video format
Video input: One RCA composite, One S-Video.
Audio input : Stereo audio (RCA)mm
Dimension (L)88mm x (W)28mm x (H)18mm
USB bus power
Supports high quality video resolution
NTSC: 720 x 480 @ 30fps
PAL: 720 x 576 @ 25fps
System Requirements
USB: Compliant USB 2.0 free port
OS: Windows XP SP1
CPU: Pentium III 800 above
HD: 600 MB of available hard drive space for program installation File Format Support,4GB+ hard drive space for video capture and editing
Memory: 256MB of RAM
Display: Windows-compatible display with at least 1024x768Posted 14 years ago # -
watcher13
MemberI do appreciate everybody being nice enough not to point out what a dunce I was by saying s-video is a 5 pin jack. It's a 4 pin jack with a rectangular notch at the top (and two small half rectangle notches on the bottom sides). What was I drinking that night! Sorry folks, but when you have an ego the size of a small continent, these things happen. :)
Posted 14 years ago # -
goodgotd
Memberwatcher13, considering it's just one of the many 'standard' variants of the Mini-DIN connector, which range from 3 to 9 pins, including 5 pin, not a significant oops.
That's not counting the *non*-standard variants that use the same shell for up to 10 pins, and the 7-pin often found on video cards for TV video-out that is often perfectly s-video compatible if you don't have the adapter. It gets a bit more interesting if you have a video card like mine that has both video out *and* video in... oy.
Back when I was on the street I would have matched your "ego the size of a small continent" and raised you south america. Ha. Arrogant? maybe. since other companies were always trying to hire me away while my current bosses still had steam coming out their ears... wellllll... 11 years and never spent more than a weekend between employers, I leave that up to the committee.
took me a bit to realize it's not even a shielded cable, just dual unshielded twisted-pair- and 2 of the 4 pins are signal ground- and the signal can be extended for amazing distances if one uses twin 75 ohm coax with a standard S-video cable cut in half and used as connectors on both ends, but then I got with the program.
Irritating that the 'remote' side of the dish 502 dual DVR box doesn't have S-video out, so now I'm recording off composite again. <sigh>
looking at newegg.com, if you had a PCI slot open (not in a laptop, I bet) for 17 clams plus shipping you can get one of these: (Item#:N82E16815276002)
SABRENT TV Tuner / Video Capture / MPEG Recording PCI Card with Remote Control TV-PCIRC PCI Interface, which is ho-hum but gets the job done, or Item #: N82E16815306013 DIAMOND One Touch Video Capture USB 2.0 VC500 USB 2.0 Interface - Retail at 34 bucks for USB 2.0.OTOH, try and get your DVD recorder (as I think you said it was a dvd video recorder, which has the capture hardware already) running before adding hardware to your laptop.
video capture pushes your computer *hard* if you try to capture and compress from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 at the same time, and recording in MPEG-2 takes *huge* amounts of hard drive space. Catch-22, and the reason I don't use my video card to capture video.
OTOH, this is only an athlon XP 2800+, pretty outdated.
hopefully your TV and vhs player have baseband (audio-video) inputs and outputs respectfully, as you can experiment without the dvd recorder between them- when you get the TV input to view the vhs output, *then* you can add the dvd recorder in between.
TV's can be a PITA to switch from tuner to video/audio input (heck, I got this 2002 dell 19" monitor for figuring out how to do that on a neighbor's bedroom TV without a manual), but it's well worth it for improving picture and sound quality over a tuner.
Posted 14 years ago #
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