vhs to dvd?

[lilshann]

Hi there, I don't know if I'm in the right forum or not so if I'm not I apologize.
I want to know how to take my vhs's and put them onto dvd's. I don't know if there is special software I need or anything like that, I do have a dvd burner. Also I'm new at this and if someone could walk me through it step by step it would be so appreciated.

[moonrocks]

Capturing your VHS tapes to DVD isn't too hard to do, but there's a lot to get familiar with at the beginning. There isn't a single step by step because there are lots of different ways of getting there. I think your first decision would be if you want to use your PC to capture or a DVD recorder.

Your PC is more versatile and it's probably what most people use. You've got more control of the video and you can edit it before creating your DVD. However there's a lot to be said for hooking your VCR up to a good DVD recorder. It's kind of the quick and easy way of converting your tapes to DVD if you really don't want to invest a lot of time learning new software. Lots of people get great results just doing that.

If you're going to use your PC you'd need a capture card installed in your PC. There are lots of different choices for a capture card and you'd probably want to take some time to do some homework and get a number of peoples opinions before buying one. The capture card is the most important component for ending up with good quality video. As always, price plays a big role there.

Most capture cards will come with capture software. There's also free capture software you can download like Virtualdubmod or Virtualvcr.

After your card captures the video you'll probably end up with an mpeg2 (DVD compliant) or an avi file on your hard drive. If it's an avi file then use software like TMPGEnc Plus to encode your file to a format that is compatible with DVD video. Next you'd use authoring software like TMPGEnc DVD author to create the actual video files to burn. Last of all you'd use burning software like Nero to burn the DVD.

I'd start out by reading these guides just to get a better overview of all thats involved.

http://nickyguides.digital-digest.com/video-capture.htm

http://www.digitalfaq.com/dvdguides/capture/intro.htm

[lemonyx]

We have a WinTv 250 card for analog/digital conversion (VHS to DVD) and I use VideoReDo and Ulead Movie Factory to burn. Since we have satalite, I used an "S" video and RCA cable to hookup the satalite box to the PC. Wife likes Gunsmoke and I use some of the software bundled with the WinTv card (WinTv Scheduler) to set the timer to record. I just edit out the commercials, and burn.

For VHS, I hook up one of our better VHS players to the PC thru the WinTv card, record and then burn.

[lilshann]

Thanks for the info but am still so confused. So, my first step is a capture card? Second I need to get the software right? I did read the websites that moonrock suggested (thanks moonrock for taking the time to answer my post) but was still very much confused.
As I mentioned I am pretty much clueless although once I can catch up I do very well.Will the software run me through this?

[lilshann]

Forgot to ask you lemonyx - how do you like your wintv card? Are you pretty happy with it or have you run across any problems? What software do you use to do just vhs to dvd without editing? I think I need to start out easy and then go from there once I get the hang of it. Did you get your wintv card and software from a website?