VHS to DV

[alanshum]

I am thinking to move all my VHS videos to DV. But I believe that I cannot directly connect my Sharp PD6E (for recording) from my home VHS. Does anybody know what is the best (simplest) way to do such job (except shooting in front of TV)? In my case, quality is not a major concern now, because I think that video moved from VHS will not be look better because it is now on DV.

[bb]

You need a cable which fits connecting your VCR with the cam. Then your cam needs the DV-in feature enabled, else it won't work. There are several sites dealing with this topic, just search for your camcorder name and "DV-in".

There are people who use DV as an intemediate format before converting to MPEG2 or MPEG4. I never tried that (my camcorder has DV-in disabled, and I never really needed it).

bb

[ronnylov]

I don't think a normal VHS VCR has a digital DV-out that can be connected to the camcorder DV-in...

But some camcorder has analog input that you can connect to the analog output of your VCR. But this feature is only available in certain (a little bit more expensive) DV-camcorders.

If your camcorder has a DV-in connector for digital DV-video you can get an analogue to DV converter. If your camera doesn't have DV-in enabled then you can try to enable it. Search on the internet if it is possible to enable DV-in on your camcorder.

If you have a DV capture card (firewire card) in your computer then it's possible to transfer video from your computer to the camera. This is useful for editing and making backup copies. But a firewire card can still not capture analogue video. If you have the analog to DV converter then your'e able to capture analagoe video via the converter to the firewire input of your PC. Then you can edit the video in the PC before transfer it to the camcorder and record it to DV-tape.

Another option is to use an analogue video capture card in the PC together with a firewire card. Then the PC can act as an analog to DV converter. This can be a little bit complicated because most analog capture cards capture interlaced video with top field first and must be converted to bottom field first before converting to DV. And the convertion is time consuming so this method is not as fast and easy as a hardware DV to analog convertor.

What is the reason to record VHS in DV-format? As you said the quality won't improve. Perhaps you need a backup copy and then this is a good way to do it without loosing to much quality.

[ronnylov]

Originally posted by bb
There are people who use DV as an intemediate format before converting to MPEG2 or MPEG4. I never tried that (my camcorder has DV-in disabled, and I never really needed it).

bb

You don't need DV-in to convert to MPEG2 or MPEG4. You need DV-out and
almost all DV-cameras has DV-out enabled. You also need a firewire card on your PC.

[bb]

@ronnylov:
You're right, I have messed up that DV-in/DV-out thing somehow...

Sorry,
bb

[alanshum]

yeah, thanks a lot for your replies. yes, at first i was thinking to have such conversion for 'sort of' backup purpose. i have a lot of VHS tapes around and take a lot of spaces (also my VHS recorder also take a lot of spaces by comparing it to my DV camcorder). at first i just want to convert these VHS to DV because DV tapes are smaller. but after a well thinking, i don't think that i can save spaces at all. because each VHS tape has about 3 hours of video (for those 180 tapes that i often bought), but each DV tape only can record 1 hour of video. that's why a PC analog capture card may sound a good choice, because i can have those VHS tape stored not only on DV, then may be on CD.

thanks anyway.

[Bodman]

HI alanshum


You need a camcorder that does AV-IN. (Panasonic GS5 or Canon 530i (the i stands for av in))



I use the AV-IN for recording from a bullet cam and I also have some very old video tapes i need to back up...but why not capture straight to PC and convert to DVD

[alanshum]

Hi Bodman,

I think our discussion is going off topic now.:rolleyes: Anyway, I am also thinking to capture those VHS to CD/DVD (on the other hand I believe that converting to DV is less time-consuming). What resolution do you think is good for VHS? I have read somewhere in 'Capturing Video' that VCD resolution is good enough. But I am thinking to capture at SVCD or even at DVD resolution although it may take me more disks to store all my VHS.

Alan.

[bb]

@alanshum:
If you want best quality, capture at a higher resolution like 768x576 (PAL) to get as much detail as you can. Then apply your filters, then resize to a lower resolution like 384x288 (temporal smoothing filters might be placed better after the resizing).

You will get good results if you capture at VCD resolution, too (352x288 for PAL, NTSC=340x240). The process will be faster this way.

bb