Solved VHS to DVD help? (merging .mpgs and compressing 4 to a disk)

[mitchell65]

BTW Don't worry about many of the processes that you are using takeing a long time. Capturing a video takes at least as long as the length of the video. If the tape has 100 min of running time it will take at least that to capture it. When it comes to rendering the videos this can take even longer depending on the complexity of any menus or effect (like transitions) that you have put in. A couple of hours for a video of 1hr 15 mins is not at all unusual!

 

[FuturDreamz]

I used FFmpegX to convert the files to .mp4 H264 because it's a more universal standard, that's less likely to have minute incompatible configurations.
DVDstyler is taking a while to transcode, but the generating works and the VIDEO_TS files work normally in VLC. I'm at school so I can't check the audio, but I think it is fine. when I get home I'll regenerate into an .iso as a final test, then burn to disk.

 

[mitchell65]

Why not just burn the VIDEO_TS folder to disc as data saving another operation. You may need to create a AUDIO_TS folder in the same folder as your VIDEO_TS and burn that to the disc as well. Many DVD players need that empty folder to recognise the whole as a DVD!

 

[FuturDreamz]

Why not just burn the VIDEO_TS folder to disc as data saving another operation. You may need to create a AUDIO_TS folder in the same folder as your VIDEO_TS and burn that to the disc as well. Many DVD players need that empty folder to recognise the whole as a DVD!

DVDStyler did create an AUDIO_TS folder and it can burn directly to disk.
I just chose "just generate" so I didn't waste a disk if something went wrong
I spent the whole weekend with things going wrong, so I'm going to make absolutely sure this process works before doing my entire collection.

So far the video quality is almost perfect, but that's probably due to the movies being old Disney classics. It may only work with the mallet color palette of cartoons.

 

[FuturDreamz]

It's working.

the picture is a little shuddery at times, but for backing up our VHS collection it works fine.

 

[mitchell65]

That's good, well done! Just one last question: When you play the video on a TV do you get a full screen picture or does it have a black border to any of the edges?

 

[FuturDreamz]

full screen. playback onn the computer has a ~5pixel boarder where the picture fades to black (I'm assuming to calibrate the scanlines) but it shows up on the TV with no boarders.

 

[mitchell65]

That's good! So shall we mark this thread as resolved now?

 

[FuturDreamz]

sure.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
Actually an easier way WITHOUT using a computer is simply to use the Composite Video OUT (or s-vhs if you have it -- slightly better quality) on the VHS machine and run these into the Composite / AUX IN on a DVD recorder. Record the DVD in LP mode (depending on the quality of the original VHS).

Set the DVD recorder to record to DVD (if you've got one of these that also have a HDD in it too).

Use a DVD+RW so you can re-use.

Set DVD recorder to Finanlize disc after you've recorded your movies

Then You've got a proper DVD where you should be able to get 4 Hrs of Video at LP mode (enough for TWO movies).

Now use something like AnyDVD to copy the DVD image to HDD on your computer.

I do this a lot for recording SKY TV movies so I can watch them later on a laptop when I'm travelling --I copy them to a portable USB HDD via the same method -- quality is better since I can use direct SCART or HDMI from Sat box to DVD recorder too -- although HDMI sometimes adds protection which the scart baypasses.

Cheers
jimbo