[MacDV] Re: VHS to HD to DVD

[Richard Brown]

With only one hour of "quality" video possible on a 4.7 GB DVD-R, you'll
have to consider dealing with VHS or sub VHS quality to fit a feature
film on a DVD-R. As you are starting from VHS, the compression could
compound the already low resolution/quality of your source material.

One excellent choice to IMPROVE your VHS when digitizing is to
rent a Time Base Corrector (TBS) for the weekend from a local video
rental house. Maybe even rent a pro level VHS deck WITH a built
in TBC. Playing a VHS as processed through a TBC into a DV
converter will create DV files which are, to say the least,
  night and day better than ordinary VHS playback.

With your limited hard disk space (DV runs about 13GB per hour...)
you will run out of disk space quickly, meaning this will be a
job requiring quite a few weekends.

You might look for used TBC's on ebay... A company, "FOR-A" made
a bunch of them which should be old enough for ebay deals today.

They will all take BNC connectors, so you'll likely need BNC to RCA
adapters, available at Radio Shack.

Just an idea from someone with over 10,000 movies on VHS
languishing in storage, usurped (slowly)  by DVD.

Richard Brown



On May 19, 2004, at 4:34 PM, sb wrote:

> All you need is some way to convert the output of the VHS machine into
> firewire, which goes into the computer.
>
> You can use a dv camcorder that has analog inputs and will "pass thru" 
> the
> signal. You could also buy a stand alone media converter. The most
> frequently recommended are by Canopus, Miglia, and ADS. They sell for 
> about
> $300.
>
>  regards,
>
>  sb
>
> On 5/19/2004 3:53 PM, "Richard Meyeroff" <rem at meyeroff-c-c.com> wrote:
>
>> Gentlemen & gentlewomen
>>
>> I have large # of vhs tape recorded off the tv.  In order to save
>> space i would like to transfer them to a hard drive and after
>> deleting the things i don't want or need transferring them to DVD.
>>
>> What equipment do i need and how much hard disk storage do i need
>> figuring  i have about 300 tapes.
>>
>> I figure I can import them into iMovie or just burn them using iDVD.
>>
>> I have a Mac dual 1gig with 1gig of ram and 160gig of hard drive.
>>
>> I have golive dual VHS recorder.
>
>
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