Convert your VHS videotapes to DVD. Transfer Video Tapes to DVD before they deteriorate. Send 8mm videos from VCR to DVD.
Fortunately, if you still have a device that can play your tapes, like VCR and a DVD recorder in your PC, you can convert these analog videos in Hi8, 8mm or VHS Tapes to DVD.
To copy VHS tapes to DVD, you'll want an analog deck, like your VHS player or camcorder (Hi8), to send the analog video to a capture device, which you can control with a consumer DVD-authoring program such as Sonic Solutions' popular MyDVD, used for this article. In the authoring program, you can set capture and encoding parameters, choose and customize your menu, capture the video, and record the DVD on a standard DVD recorder.
Get a DVD recordable drive that supports dual-format (+R/RW and –R/RW) single and dual-layer recording. They provide a better one-disc solution for converting 2-hour VHS tapes. The VHS To DVD trasfer is 16x speed.
Ulead MovieFactory and Pinnacle Instant DVD Recorder can copy tapes to DVD in a single step, so you can set a few parameters, roll the tape, walk away, and return to a finished DVD.
The least expensive way to convert Hi8 to DVD or to convert VHS tapes to DVD is to use your computer and a separate capture device, either capturing directly to MPEG-2 and converting to DVD in a single step, or capturing to DV format, editing your video, and then producing your DVD. Or you can buy a standalone device that can convert analog video directly to DVD in mpeg2 without a computer.
Both computer-related options require an analog deck to play the original tape. Your old camcorder or VHS player will do, but if you're buying new, look for a deck that's compatible with your tapes and that offers S-Video output (rather than composite only). If you'll be working with older tapes, consider a deck with an internal time base corrector (TBC), which removes jitter from the video and produces a cleaner signal. Also, consider a deck that can record in Super VHS mode, which produces higher-quality VHS tapes than plain VHS decks.
JVC's SR-MV40U contains an internal DVD recorder, and can copy VHS tapes to DVD without a computer. If you plan to convert directly from video tape to DVD, get a device that uses internal chips to convert your video into MPEG-2, the format used by DVDs. JVC SR-MV40U and ADS DVD-Xpress are external analog capture devices that connect to computer via USB.
The VHS to DVD recorder, Canopus Corporation's ADVC300, also an analog-to-digital capture device, converted the analog signal into DV format, which it transferred to the computer via a FireWire connector. Then, during capture, MyDVD converted the incoming DV video into MPEG-2 on the computer, but the quality was inferior to that produced by the DVDXpress and the SR-MV40U.
Since we converted from tape to DVD without editing, we captured with the ADS Tech DVDXpress, which attaches to the computer via a USB 2.0 port. We then connected S-Video and stereo audio output cables from the JVC SR-MV40U deck to the DVD Xpress. We also connected the JVC unit to a TV so we could watch our progress, primarily to help debug potential problems with the capture device and to use when cuing the tapes.
