Copy VHS to DVD players?
- Thread starter smahalko
- Start date
I have one.
It's boxed up right now so I can't tell you what brand or model number it is.
However, my recommendation would be to do some research of different models and find one with the features you want. You'll save money by not paying for features you won't use, and you'll kick yourself if you buy one that is without a feature you really want.
Make sure the VCR you are using for the source is a 4 head unit. Remember, your DVD will only be as good as the source material.
They even make machines with both the VCR and DVD recorder in the same unit.
They are really easy to use - not much different than using a VCR, although you can do much more with them.
It's boxed up right now so I can't tell you what brand or model number it is.
However, my recommendation would be to do some research of different models and find one with the features you want. You'll save money by not paying for features you won't use, and you'll kick yourself if you buy one that is without a feature you really want.
Make sure the VCR you are using for the source is a 4 head unit. Remember, your DVD will only be as good as the source material.
They even make machines with both the VCR and DVD recorder in the same unit.
They are really easy to use - not much different than using a VCR, although you can do much more with them.
This is the one I use:
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Magnavox-Dvd-Player-Vcr-Combo/11319408
It does what it's supposed to.
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Magnavox-Dvd-Player-Vcr-Combo/11319408
It does what it's supposed to.
Assuming you have a computer and a VCR, you can get a good software package (including VCR-->USB adapter) for around $50.
Check out overstock.com, I bought one for $80. I thought about the USB computer add-on, but in retrospect glad I went with this instead. It saves a lot of wear and tear on your computer, and very easy to use. Just pop in a VHS tape, a blank disc and hit the record button.
If you're not sure which ones are bad, check either Amazon or Walmart for customer reviews.
If you're not sure which ones are bad, check either Amazon or Walmart for customer reviews.
I do a bit of this for folks. My recommendation is this. Depending on what you want to do with the digital reproduction will determine the kind of device you should buy.
If you simply want a copy for copy with no ability to edit your product, then the VHS / DVD copy machines are just fine.
If you would rather have the ability to edit, add chapters, voice overs and combine different clips together, add video transitions and special effects, include your own video clips, add background music, and much more, then the computer / vhs player is the way to go.
One word of advice, you can take it or leave it but believe me I've been through this. Forget .... and I mean FORGET USB based converters.
Transfers via Firewire are the only way to get a finished product that doesn't have hitches in it, or the risk of the audio and video running out of sync.
Buying a USB converter is a matter of being penny wise and pound foolish.
Check this link below where it says "Look here". I'd suggest the model 110 but the model 55 is nice also.
I have the Canopus model ADVC 300. I believe it is no longer made. It is more expensive but, you can also adjust color, sharpness, hue, saturation, audio gain and more before the VHS is converted to digital. It is done on the fly as it is being converted to your computer.
With this, you can actually make a VHS a tad BETTER than original!
You may luck into one on ebay if you are inclined to get more into the conversion thing.
Look here
OR HERE .. This is the Cheese
Again this option is best for those who want to do additional editing. It will result in a dv-avi file on your pc. A dv-avi file is a lightly compressed, frame accurate digital video file. Very edit friendly.
Unlike the highly compressed mp2 and 4 files dv-avi files all much easier and precise editing prior to authoring to a dvd format and burning to disc.
If you simply want a copy for copy with no ability to edit your product, then the VHS / DVD copy machines are just fine.
If you would rather have the ability to edit, add chapters, voice overs and combine different clips together, add video transitions and special effects, include your own video clips, add background music, and much more, then the computer / vhs player is the way to go.
One word of advice, you can take it or leave it but believe me I've been through this. Forget .... and I mean FORGET USB based converters.
Transfers via Firewire are the only way to get a finished product that doesn't have hitches in it, or the risk of the audio and video running out of sync.
Buying a USB converter is a matter of being penny wise and pound foolish.
Check this link below where it says "Look here". I'd suggest the model 110 but the model 55 is nice also.
I have the Canopus model ADVC 300. I believe it is no longer made. It is more expensive but, you can also adjust color, sharpness, hue, saturation, audio gain and more before the VHS is converted to digital. It is done on the fly as it is being converted to your computer.
With this, you can actually make a VHS a tad BETTER than original!
You may luck into one on ebay if you are inclined to get more into the conversion thing.
Look here
OR HERE .. This is the Cheese
Again this option is best for those who want to do additional editing. It will result in a dv-avi file on your pc. A dv-avi file is a lightly compressed, frame accurate digital video file. Very edit friendly.
Unlike the highly compressed mp2 and 4 files dv-avi files all much easier and precise editing prior to authoring to a dvd format and burning to disc.
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http://www.amazon.com/Honestech-VHS-DVD-5-0-Deluxe/dp/B0040FT30O
Tried 2 other well known ones and they had so many issues I sent them back for a refund. The above works wonderfully well. And the $55 or so is a steal for what the product can do for you.
I've been regularly transferring onto DVDs my huge library of VHS videos that were broadcast from the early 1980s till the present time. The transfers come out flawlessly. Obviously works for any type of VHS content you want to transfer.
*** It also flawlessly transfers to CD any music cassettes you want to have in more durable form before the cassettes deteriorate with time. The resulting CD have total fidelity to the original tape and even automatically irons out any extraneous static or noise that's developed on the source cassette.
In the Honestech's "Easy" mode it's one click for the fully automated capture and DVD burn.
In its Advanced mode you can chapterize and fully edit to your heart's content.
The company lives up to its name "Honest" and has a great Support team at your disposal for any questions you may have along the way.
Tried 2 other well known ones and they had so many issues I sent them back for a refund. The above works wonderfully well. And the $55 or so is a steal for what the product can do for you.
I've been regularly transferring onto DVDs my huge library of VHS videos that were broadcast from the early 1980s till the present time. The transfers come out flawlessly. Obviously works for any type of VHS content you want to transfer.
*** It also flawlessly transfers to CD any music cassettes you want to have in more durable form before the cassettes deteriorate with time. The resulting CD have total fidelity to the original tape and even automatically irons out any extraneous static or noise that's developed on the source cassette.
In the Honestech's "Easy" mode it's one click for the fully automated capture and DVD burn.
In its Advanced mode you can chapterize and fully edit to your heart's content.
The company lives up to its name "Honest" and has a great Support team at your disposal for any questions you may have along the way.
The short answer is yes.
A DVD video file is a .VOB file ( which stands for video object) The standard definition plain old video file is an mpeg-2 file.
You need a converter (software program) than will pick out the VOB files from the file structure on your DVD, usually in a folder called Video_TS and convert them to mpeg-2.
Going back to the DVD format will require some kind of program that authors and burns to DVD. Any video editing program like Adobe, or Sony Movie Studio, or even a program like Nero. There are likely free programs too. I never played with the windows movie maker program but it may.
Here is a free program that is supposed to convert VOB to MPEG-2 and a lot more.
There are a lot of other ways to do this with paid programs that I use, but no sense buying a full blown program if you can locate a freebie. :smile:
edit... There are mixed reviews about this program. I'm not suggesting it specifically. I just did a quick search for a free program. Take some time and google "VOB to MPEG-2" and see if there are better choices.
Well you got me curious so I looked a bit and HERE is one that is supposed to be good.
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JC
Coos Cues
You're almost correct about VOB files but in actuality they do not need to be converted at all as they are already mpeg2 files. Once you copy them to your computer navigate to "tools/folder options/view" and uncheck the box that says "hide file extensions for known file types". Then change the file extension from .vob to .mpg and you are done. VOB files are just DVD compliant mpg2 files that have had their extensions changed to .vob in order to work with a dvd structure. Once you have changed their file name you can play them with windows media player as any other mpeg file. You may also notice VOB files have a maximum size of one gig. The little VOB files you see of 50-100 megs are the menu video. The meat of the video will ball be just under one gig except for the last one which will be whatever size it takes to terminate the dvd movie. Put the dvd in your computer drive and open the thing in file manager. Go to the video_ts folder and copy all the files that say VOB that are a gig in size to your hard drive and rename them .mpg as described above. Nothing needed but windows.
JC
Edit: download media player classic 3-2-1 and it will play the copied VOB files on your computer without any renaming. It recognizes them as mpeg files. It's a nice player since it will also play in slow motion if you like to look at yourself practicing pool as well as a bunch of other features windows media player lack. It's free, get it here. http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/
Edit Again: I realized that the latest version of windows media player will also play VOB files, it just prompts you first that it doesn't recognize VOB but if you tell it to try anyway it then plays them just fine. I hadn't tried it for a while since I use media player classic for video.
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Well I was trying not to get too technical when offering a generic solution that would work universally.
Actually, you are almost correct, but, a VOB file is not an mpeg-2 file, but rather a container based file that within it, contains an mpeg-2 program stream.
Renaming a VOB to mpeg-2 can present its own set of issues even though you may have not experienced them.
Among other differences, an mpeg-2 file consists of one video stream and one audio stream. On the other hand a VOB container can have multiple audio streams. The player you are trying to play them back with may or may not play because of that.
Or ... you may get one of your VOB 1gig files to play in English, and one to play in Spanish, or French, or whatever, since your player only knows to randomly choose one stream. Not to mention being burdened with all these individual video streams in separate renamed VOB files.
If you want to store a video on your PC, one complete generic file that can be edited or converted back to DVD is the best bet.
Also a VOB file has additional header information. This may actually prevent the file from playing on some players that support mpeg.
But, all this is the technical junk that is simply avoided by converting the file to a generic mpeg-2 and is the reason I did not even want to present the option of renaming the file from VOB to mpeg-2.
Here is some info ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vob
http://www.mpucoder.com/DVD/vobov.html
JC
Coos Cues
FWIW, I just thought to add this to the thread -- it's a link to a pdf of the User's Guide for the $55 Honestech 5.0 VHS to DVD conversion product I mentioned in an earlier post on this thread:
http://www.honestech.com/pdf/UserGuide_VHStoDVD5_EN.pdf
It shows how simple the Easy mode is (totally automated) and the variety of editing you can do in the Advanced mode.
Anyway, I've gotten flawless conversions with the product for several years now.
Arnaldo
http://www.honestech.com/pdf/UserGuide_VHStoDVD5_EN.pdf
It shows how simple the Easy mode is (totally automated) and the variety of editing you can do in the Advanced mode.
Anyway, I've gotten flawless conversions with the product for several years now.
Arnaldo
Here's one. http://www.amazon.com/Magnavox-Reco...HQLC/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1336336246&sr=8-2
You might be able to find a cheaper one at a pawn shop. That's a good place to look for outdated electronics.
You might be able to find a cheaper one at a pawn shop. That's a good place to look for outdated electronics.
Here ya go
Here ya go this is what I use.
Panasonic Model DMR-ES40V
It is a double recorder.
Here are some buying links - http://www.google.com/search?FORM=M....,cf.osb&fp=c7cb39b56786d580&biw=1156&bih=557
Good Luck!
Here ya go this is what I use.
Panasonic Model DMR-ES40V
It is a double recorder.
Here are some buying links - http://www.google.com/search?FORM=M....,cf.osb&fp=c7cb39b56786d580&biw=1156&bih=557
Good Luck!
JC
Coos Cues
The other easy thing to do is to use a free program called power ISO to make an image file of the entire DVD once it's done. It will store on your computer as a single file with a .iso suffix which can be mounted on a virtual drive, also created by power iso and played back as if it's in an actual drive or you can extract the video files from the dvd image to your hard drive as you wish at a later date or burn another DVD copy from the file. Many commercial DVDs have built in security to keep you from copying but the ones you create from VHS will not. You can buy a fairly inexpensive program called Any DVD which you can run in the background and strip most copy protection off of commercial DVDs too if you want to store a backup copy of them in case of physical damage to your DVDs you buy. There is a ton of things you can do with Power ISO and the trial version will do most anything you want for zero cost. Try it, you'll like it.
JC