Hi guys,
I have a collection of great older movies on VHS tape that I would like to save on DVD.
Has anybody ever tried to make a DVD from a VHS movie? Is this possible at all? If yes, how is it done?
All info greatly appreciated.
Julian
I know of three ways and have used two of them
1. Digitize from a VHS video deck using a analog to digital video converter and a Mac with iMovie and iDVD from iLife. Here are a couple of converters. I use an ADS Pyro A/V Link that I bought for about $120 five years ago.
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/ElGato/10020260R/http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Canon/77010138100/I haven't tried it recently, but in the past I did have trouble with movies longer than 1 hour in early versions of iDVD. I would assume this has changed with newer versions of iDVD.
This process takes a long time for each tape - first you have to move the video into iMovie at standard speed, then you have to process the video using iDVD which can take a number of hours if you have an older G4 machine.
You also need a lot free disk space to accommodate the movie in iMovie. I think something like 20 GB per hour of video.
I forget if there are any issues with videos protected with Macrovision Copyguard (typically Disney and associated studios). I think I was able to copy these OK.
Method 2: VHS tape deck connected to a DVD recorder. The tape will still only record at 1x, but it is a lot faster than using a computer.
If your tapes have Copyguard, you need to get an "image enhancer" and connect it between the machines. This negates the CopyGuard and seems to clean up the image a bit on other tapes as well. I haven't looked for these recently, but they were common about 5 years ago and cost around 5,000. I have heard that you can also use some video cameras to do this.
Method 3: Buy a decent DVD recorder that also has a video deck in it. I haven't used one, but my local appliance store tells me it is very easy to copy tapes. I was told that Copyguard is no problem, which surprised me.
The recorders go for about 50,000 - 80,000 yen and have an HD for recording from the TV. The disadvantage is that you will not be able to play DVDs from other regions and you cannot play Blue-Ray disks.
Colin
