Home VHS to DVD

[daveiosys]

June 21, 2005
I want to copy home VHS movies to DVD.
I have a Plextor DVD drive - Model PX-712A.
I am looking for a solution which will use
an external device and software package and
want to steer clear of add-in cards or boards.

Your suggestions would be most appreciated.

Thank you for your time. Best regards.

[mastercontrol]

Do you have a DV camera and firewire input on your computer? If you do, you should be able to use your camera to pass through the video from your VHS machine. Another option would be to get a Canopus DV converter, which is an external device. Another option would be to get a standalone DVD recorder.

It all comes down to cost and what you already have. If cost is an issue, then your cheapest method would be an internal capture card. The Canopus and standalone options are probably the most costly methods.

Personally, I started my capture journey with an ATI All-In-Wonder card. I now record to a standalone DVD recorder (Panasonic DMR-E85H), then dub the video to a DVD-RAM disc (as I have a DVD recorder in my PC that reads RAM discs). I take the .vro file (which contains the video and audio) and work with it on my PC, then author.

There are lots of resources online that you can use to help make your decision. Sites like this and videohelp.com are great resources.

Good luck!

[Guest]

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=95450&highlight=years+home+video

[JeremyIrons]

If you want to steer clear from internal cards etc, there are a number of units out there that will hook up to your VHS, and output an MPEG2 file to your computer via USB or Firewire.

Some units (like the SONY DVDirect) have a burner built-in so you can skip the computer part and just burn direct to a DVD disc.

mastercontrol mentionned a standalone DVD recorder, that may be worth looking into since you've got a positive review right there.