Re: VHS tapes and DVDs
- From: Chrono1st <Chrono1st@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 07:58:02 -0700
Wow, thank you so much!! Thats a lot of information, which is exactly the
type of response I was hoping for. (^o^)
I was considering the option of just having some professionals do it, but I
already have the problem that I live in Japan, and my Japanese language
skills are limited. You know, basic-conversation-is-okay level, but I'm a
little iffy about whether I can explain specifically what I would want to a
clerk in Japanese... Also, you say in general they wouldn't really want to
edit out commercials for me? I wonder if there are any places that would do
that. Commercials are a hassle, so if I can't get them to do it, I guess I
have to do it myself.... I'd also love to set up chapters and a title,
that'd be great, so the "do-it-myself" option seems best, unless I guess I
can find some store that will let me hang around with the guys while they are
doing the work, pointing out everything I want, step-by-step (pretty
unlikely?).
Not sure if my computer can handle it, though. Time for some tough
research, then. Any additional details you can provide is of course greatly
appreciated (such as specific products - the more specific the better). I'll
go browse Google now, thank you so much for your time and information.
From,
Chrono1st
"Jaime" wrote:
Yes, you are correct, you need two basic items - some hardware to
capture/convert the VHS tapes to the PC and some software to do the editing.
You also need to make sure that the PC you have can handle these tasks -
video editing requires a decent amount of CPU power, memory, and lots of
hard drive space.
As far as hardware goes, there are lots of different ways to get the info
into the PC, there are some simple "capture" cards that go into your PC and
have plugs/cables to connect the output of the VCR to the PC, some are
internally installed the PC, some are a box that sits outside the PC. There
are also cards/boxes that not only function as a way to capture video, but
also have a TV tuner built in, so you can hook up to your cable/antenna/etc.
and watch or record TV on the computer. These devices range in price from
perhaps $20 to over $100, the difference in price has to do with whether or
not they have tuners and whether or not the process of capturing and
recording the video is done by hardware on the card or by software on the
PC; using hardware to "encode" the signal is better. I use a Hauppauge 150
card in my system, which is a Media Center PC, it is used primarily as a
tuner, but it also can function as a capture device for tapes.
As far as software, Movie Maker is an editing program that come free with
Windows XP, and if you don't need anything really fancy, it works fine for
doing simple editing. Otherwise, there are other video editing choices out
there, Pinnacle, uLead, and Sony all sell editing software for <$100 (you
can spend a lot more for professional level stuff if you want). The thing to
make sure of if you buy another product is that is also can create the
playable DVD as an end product. Most do this now, but earlier versions of
some of the editing software only created a computer file as a finished
product; you needed to have a DVD Authoring package to generate a standalone
DVD with Titles and Chapters, etc. These programs provide some ability to
cleanup and fix the source material, but there is only so much you can do
with old VHS recordings, they're never going to look like new DVD's.
When using any of this software, you need to make sure that the format you
capture the tapes in is compatible with the editing software (mpeg, for
example).
None of this is particularly hard to do, but you have said that you are
fairly computer illiterate, this does take time to learn the basics, capture
all the tapes, edit them, and create the final product. One option (not
necessarily a money saver) would be to check around at a photo shop, to see
if you can take your tapes somewhere and have them transferred them to DVD,
they probably won't edit the commercials out, but it would save a lot of
time on your part. You still could take the data to your PC and do the
editing later and create a final version.
--
James
Orlando (Goofy says "Hey!"), Florida
.
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