Mov to VHS

[michaelessy]

If I'm posting this in the wrong forum, I'm sorry:rolleyes:.

Ok, this is what I need to do. I have a .mov that I somehow need to get onto a VHS. I have a DVD burner, so I could put it on a DVD and then onto a VHS, but I don't know what program I could use to do that.

So if anyone has any ideas on how I can get this Quicktime movie onto a VHS, please reply.

Thanks!

Michael
www.twofortap.com

[jggimi]

Welcome to Doom9's forum, Michael! I hope we can help you with your quest.

As you've already figured out, you need a way to somehow get analog video and audio "out" of your computer, and then "in" to a VHS deck. And you had a credible idea, which is, to encode and then author a DVD. After that, you could use a standalone DVD player to do the job of sending analog signals to a VHS Deck, and pressing the Record button.

Here's my personal analysis of your main choices. There may be other choices, and, I'm sure, other opinions. You will probably find it easiest to add a video card with TV-out capability, and use your computer's Quicktime player while recording via video cables and audio cables connected to the video and audio cards of your computer. It skips the transcoding from Quicktime to DVD's MPEG-2, which can reduce quality, and, at the same time, I believe it may be the least expensive choice as well.

Some commercial DVD encoding/authoring software accepts Quicktime as input. I found a few products by using this Google search (http://www.google.com/search?q=quicktime+dvd+author&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0). You may find that most of this software is far, far more expensive than a new video card with TV-out.

With trial and lots of error, you could use many of the free tools here to prepare for DVD encoding, and to do the DVD authoring. But we still must use commercial MPEG-2 tools for the encoding. And the MPEG-2 encoding tools used are either in the same price range as an inexpensive video card with TV-out, or much, much, more expensive.

You could take your file(s) to a commercial conversion service. Prices and services will vary dramatically.If you want to try using the tools here ... it may be possible to do so. Since your source is Quicktime (.mov files), you might be using a Mac; most of the tools, and the guides for the tools, that are available and discussed at this site are for the Windows environment. So if you're a Mac user, we won't be too much help.

Before beginning, I recommend a thorough review of the applicable guides at www.doom9.org. Start with The Basics section, and, at the very least, review the DVD Structure guide. Even if you have a Mac.

Assuming you have a PC, you could start in Doom9's Downloads section, and install a Quicktime-to-AVI tool called Mov2AVI (http://www.doom9.org/Soft21/Encoders/MPEG4/mov2avi.zip). I've not used the tool, but i understand it will convert from Quicktime to AVI.

(Just to level set: AVI is a "container" format -- many different types of audio and video are supported. The different video and audio formats are called "codecs." Codec stands for "compressor/decompressor" and the codec converts sounds or pictures to bits in a file, or translates the bits in the file to sound or pictures on playback.)

For the purpose of transition to AVI (prior to DVD encoding), the general recommendation is to convert audio and video streams into lossless codecs such as HuffYUV for video, and Linear PCM for audio. They take a tremendous amount of disk space, but the reason is so that detail is not be lost in this step of the transition. The conversion from Quicktime to MPEG2 will introduce loss, so avoiding loss mid-conversion is important. And as to disk space, they consume a vast amount. You can expect a Gigabyte of disk space for every couple of minutes of content.

It may be possible to frameserve Quicktime into an MPEG-2 encoder, using AviSynth and Windows DirectShow, which would avoid the massive disk space requirement for the HuffYUV video, but, I have never tried this with Quicktime, and the audio must be handled separately. I do not know if Mov2AVI will extract audio alone.

So, you might need to add another disk drive to your computer, and they cost more than inexpensive video cards with TV-Out, too.

Now that you have your content in transitional AVI form, you can begin looking through Doom9's DVD guides (http://www.doom9.org/mpg/dvdr-guides.htm). And, under Format Conversion guides, he has an AVI -> DVD-R guide (http://www.doom9.org/mpg/avi2dvdr.htm) that uses CCE (the more expensive of the two readily available encoders).

This is just my take on the expense and/or effort you'll incur to create a VHS tape from Quicktime by authoring a DVD.

I hope this didn't come across too negatively. :rolleyes:

[michaelessy]

Thank you very much. You gave me the answers I was looking for.

Michael
www.twofortap.com

[jggimi]

You're very welcome.

Two more thoughts: 1) Before making any committment, wait a little while to see if you get different opinions and suggestions. I don't know everything, it just appears that way. 2) No matter what happens, please come back and let us know what you decided to do, and how it worked for you.

Should you elect to use the guides and tools here, please don't hesitate ask questions when you get confused, run into trouble, or need some clarification.

[Solo]

Please note there are also two types of MOV files.
Sorenson MOV and Cinepak MOV.
The following links might also help.

http://www.divx-digest.com/articles/mov2divx.html
http://www.divx-digest.com/articles/mov2avi.html
http://nickyguides.digital-digest.com/mov2avi.htm

[killingspree]

hi, and also welcome to the forum

first I want to say congrats to jggimi for this wonderful post... this should almost be built into the FAQ... (:

and a tiny thought:
there are actually external switches/adapters that go from VGA to svideo/composit. so if you do not want to get a TV out card this is another way to go. i have never used one of these and do not know what quality they yield. anyway they are rather expensive to... a quick google search gave me prices between 100 and 200 $ (US). so it might still be cheaper to go out and get a card with a TV out.

oh and one more:
be aware of the fact that a lot of graphics boards have a TV out. perhaps you'd rather like to invest into a new graphics card that also has this feat.

steVe

edit: here's a link, sale $99, within US only http://www.svideotorca.com/vgatotv.html

[michaelessy]

Thanks for the replies. I have it figured out :D. I converted the .mov to an .avi, and used Sonic MyDVD to put it on a DVD.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. They were very helpful!

Michael
www.twofortap.com