How do I convert VHS to DVD?

[trooperchix]

I am sitting on over a hundred Disney and other kid's VHS tapes we still have around from when our kids were little. My granddaughter has found them and finds them fantastically entertaining but VHS isn't exactly hardy for a 4 year old to handle. I'm looking to convert them to DVD for both backup and space savings. Cinderella has already bit the dust and I'm paying dearly for it. I have done some research and every bit of information assumes that I would have an idea of what I'm doing. I do own a DVR but most of them won't copy for copy protect reasons. As far as I can tell the only way I can convert them is by going from analog VHS to digital DVD. Now, I have no clue how to do this nor what hardware I would need if any to do this. I don't know how to hook the VCR to the computer. I'm assuming someone else has run into this problem. If anyone can walk me through this, I will be infinitely grateful. Save me!!

[dnguyen1963]

I am sitting on over a hundred Disney and other kid's VHS tapes we still have around from when our kids were little. My granddaughter has found them and finds them fantastically entertaining but VHS isn't exactly hardy for a 4 year old to handle. I'm looking to convert them to DVD for both backup and space savings. Cinderella has already bit the dust and I'm paying dearly for it. I have done some research and every bit of information assumes that I would have an idea of what I'm doing. I do own a DVR but most of them won't copy for copy protect reasons. As far as I can tell the only way I can convert them is by going from analog VHS to digital DVD. Now, I have no clue how to do this nor what hardware I would need if any to do this. I don't know how to hook the VCR to the computer. I'm assuming someone else has run into this problem. If anyone can walk me through this, I will be infinitely grateful. Save me!!

Ok, you have several options.

1. If you have money to burn, bring all your VHS tapes to Wal-Mart or Walgreens for the conversion.

2. Option # 2 - Do not use Linux because there is no simple way to do this (yes, I have searched and posted for help in this forum without any success). If you have Windows XP (with Service Pack 2) somewhere this would work smoothly.

Buy a USB video capture device such as Dazzle (made by Pinnacle) from Best Buy for @ $100.00.

Install the software then hookup Dazzle.

Buy a Y-audio cable from Radioshack (@$4.00). Plug this cable to the back of your VCR Audio Out (most likely a Mono single plug. If you have stereo out then you do not need the cable).

Plug the Video (yellow) and Audio cables (red and white connected to the Y-cable) from your VCR to Dazzle.

Start the software, put in a blank DVD (I assume you have a DVD recorder on your computer - if not, you can get one from Newegg for less than $30.00), hit play on your VCR and start recording.

3. Option 3 - Buy expensive Video Capture Device. The drawback - Dazzle software can only record 104 minutes. If your movie is longer than that you would have to spend a lot more money for better capturing devices.

Good luck.:popcorn:

You can contact me directly if you need additional help.

[ajgreeny]

To be honest, the best way could be to accept that technology has moved on and get yourself a cheap DVD recorder (or even hard disk recorder) for TV broadcasts, and simply link a scart cable from the video recorder to the DVD recorder input. Very simple, and you will get better recordings of TV as well.

[dnguyen1963]

To be honest, the best way could be to accept that technology has moved on and get yourself a cheap DVD recorder (or even hard disk recorder) for TV broadcasts, and simply link a scart cable from the video recorder to the DVD recorder input. Very simple, and you will get better recordings of TV as well.

Ahh...the problem is that most DVD recorder do not allow recording of copy-righted movies even though we already paid for all those movies. Some of us are still fond of the old movies. Would you spend money on a new DVD format movie if you can easily convert your old VHS format into DVD?

[lisati]

I concur that where possible, you should buy a DVD version of your movie. The quality will usually be better, and many DVD versions of movies come with extra features like multiple sound tracks, commentaries, and other extra features that you might enjoy. There's also less risk of potential copyright hassles.

Having said that, there are options. One of the gadgets I use (for stuff I've recorded myself of course!) is a combination VCR and DVD recorder. I load up the VHS tape and a blank DVD, make sure the tape is rewound, press one button, and most of the work is done.

I also have a combo HDD/DVD recorder daisy chained off a VHS player which I've used for friends home movies. I copy the footage to the HDD, and when I'm satisfied that copy has worked satisfactoraily (some of the tapes I've encountered have seen better days), I transfer it to a DVD+RW and from there to my computer where I can clean things up a bit if needed, put in custom chapters and other nice things to impress them.

[loveandequality]

You can get a DVD & VHS combo some of them you can copy from VHS to DVD.

[dnguyen1963]

I concur that where possible, you should buy a DVD version of your movie. The quality will usually be better, and many DVD versions of movies come with extra features like multiple sound tracks, commentaries, and other extra features that you might enjoy. There's also less risk of potential copyright hassles.

Having said that, there are options. One of the gadgets I use (for stuff I've recorded myself of course!) is a combination VCR and DVD recorder. I load up the VHS tape and a blank DVD, make sure the tape is rewound, press one button, and most of the work is done.

I also have a combo HDD/DVD recorder daisy chained off a VHS player which I've used for friends home movies. I copy the footage to the HDD, and when I'm satisfied that copy has worked satisfactoraily (some of the tapes I've encountered have seen better days), I transfer it to a DVD+RW and from there to my computer where I can clean things up a bit if needed, put in custom chapters and other nice things to impress them.


Well, these VHS-DVD recorder combos work well with home-made VHS tapes. They WILL NOT record any copy-righted movies, especially the old Disney movies (the original post was asking for a way to make backup of paid commercial movies). By the way, I am not promoting any illegal activity. It costs money to make the movies so we should pay for them. Most of the movies boxes clearly state that copying the movies is strictly prohibited. I am not sure if we are even allowed make backups of the movies that we have already paid for. Personally, if I want to watch an old movie I just check it out of the library.

[trooperchix]

I'd worry about copywrite laws if it was my intent to distribute, which it isn't. I just have a rambunctious 4 year old, lots of old movies and no money. Just asking. It's not as if I didn't already buy the rights to view the movies, it's that technology changed.

[Dayofswords]

there are services out there to do this

and i saw a product you can buy to do this at home on QVC(going to a different channel i saw this and thought it was kinda cool)

[Martym]

How is any device to know that a VHS tape you have is copyrighted?

[Brandel Valico]

I do this in Linux using a TV tuner card in my Desktop. I play the VHS tape through the tuner card to my Desktop. I then record the incoming stream as an .avi file. Then use 2ManDVD to record that .avi file to DVD.

While its true the quality isn't as good as DVD its still good enough and useful for backing up those VHS video's that aren't out on DVD or for that matter home videos.

It's not the best solution as it does require you to let the video play all the way through. But it does work.

You can buy the Tuner card at most Computer Stores. (I don't recall the model I use. It was an all in one something or other) You put it into an open pci slot and then just run a coax cable from the VHS to the card and then install Xawtv from the software center. (Xawtv lets you watch and record the stream as an .avi file)

[RedRat]

I don't think you are going to find any legitimate commercial service that will copy a Disney VHS tape to DVD for you. They would then be liable for prosecution under copyright laws, at least here in the US. This whole problem has been discussed in a myriad of forums over the Digital Millennium Copyright Act over the past many years. This rises to the front when one media supplants another, records to CDs, VHS to DVD, and now DVDs to BluRay. Obviously the vendor wants you to buy another copy of your films, after all they are in it to make a buck.

Supposedly (and this has been debated) you should be able to make one backup copy of your movies, but technically you might get yourself in trouble.

[gordintoronto]

Some video capture cards work, some do not.

Here is a page which will give you a lot of information about cards which work:
http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

[dnguyen1963]

How is any device to know that a VHS tape you have is copyrighted?

There are encoded signals that the DVD recorder will recognize.

[Objekt]

How is any device to know that a VHS tape you have is copyrighted?

Macrovision. It was an analog (IIRC) technology that basically inserted an extra signal into the picture information on the tape. The extra signal was normally invisible, but scrambled the video unintelligibly if you tried to copy the tape.

You can buy devices to strip off the Macrovision signal. It's a fairly simple matter of filtering the Macrovision component out of the VCR's output signal. Downside: you have to buy the device.

I think the original poster is in for some shopping regardless, because at minimum he's going to need a USB video capture device or TV tuner card. Some of them are quite cheap, around $20. So there is no free lunch, but it need not be expensive.

Re-buying the movies in DVD format is not a realistic option. The 4-year-old is unlikely to notice or appreciate the slightly better quality of DVD vs. VHS. Anyway there is no reason the guy should have to shell out several hundred bucks. Disney already got their cut.

[AcIDx0]

I ran into this problem a while ago. I had lots of VHS tapes shot with the first ever Sony Handycam. I did not want to loose all these so I decide to digitize all of it.

1. you need a video grabber. Some are very cheap, but your video will be 640x480 interlaced if you get the cheap cards. Hauppage, a german company produces excellent grabbing cards, but you are looking into 100-200$ for something good.

2. Attach your VCR to the grabber card, rewind the cassette.

3. You can use KINO (in the repos) to grab the video. Press play on VCR and grab in KINO. get LOTS of HDD space, since it grabs the video to raw format. 12GB per movie. (Uh-oh) Then you need to encode it with KINO to reduce the size. Then you can burn in to a DVD if you like.

4. Be prepared to invest money and time into this.

5. My advice - buy new DVDs, quality will be much better. Or go to wallmart and let them do the work. It is really not worth it.

[dnguyen1963]

I ran into this problem a while ago. I had lots of VHS tapes shot with the first ever Sony Handycam. I did not want to loose all these so I decide to digitize all of it.

1. you need a video grabber. Some are very cheap, but your video will be 640x480 interlaced if you get the cheap cards. Hauppage, a german company produces excellent grabbing cards, but you are looking into 100-200$ for something good.

2. Attach your VCR to the grabber card, rewind the cassette.

3. You can use KINO (in the repos) to grab the video. Press play on VCR and grab in KINO. get LOTS of HDD space, since it grabs the video to raw format. 12GB per movie. (Uh-oh) Then you need to encode it with KINO to reduce the size. Then you can burn in to a DVD if you like.

4. Be prepared to invest money and time into this.

5. My advice - buy new DVDs, quality will be much better. Or go to wallmart and let them do the work. It is really not worth it.


Does KINO recognize Pinnacle Dazzle DVC-100?

[hphd-Blokkolnam]

I would like to share my way:
I have an old VCR (NV-FS100), I connected the VCR RF-OUT (conventional "TV" cabel) to my MSI TV@Anywhere Plus TVtuner card TV input. I installed xawtv from rep. (ubuntu 9.10) I have found my VCR's signal via pushing on XawTV the CTRL+UP arrow (auto scan) - it was in my case on channel 36.
My settings were (Hungary):
TV-norm: PAL-BG,
Video source: Television
audio mode: mono
Freq table: west eu
Capture: grabdisplay


Okey, I was able to record the video from the VCR via pushing "R" - record movie (or choose it via right mouse click) ,

important! :

Movie driver : Microsoft AVI (RIFF) format
video format : MJPEG (AVI)

and everything was perfect, but I had NO SOUND!

Fortunatelly i have figured it out that I have to "hook" the TVtuner's audio cable into the MIC instead of the LINE-IN. So I have sound too! :D (I use to watch cable TV with TVtime (the best!), and TVtime uses the line-in to hook thew sound signal into my motherboard, so i can use SKype next to TVtime)

That's it :) :guitar:

ps.: after getting the avi, there are billions of software to convert avi into DVD format, in my case the quality was not a problem, because the VHS casette what i convert is already really noise (some old home videos)

[CJ_Hudson]

I have observed that Apple services is even more jealous of it's video files. If you buy a film on iTunes it doesn't even let you keep one copy on your computer (say you want to watch it on your laptop on a long journey?!) but instead you must be connected to the internet. I think it checks you are a valid user then streams it, or maybe it's on your computer but you can't watch it without validation through the 'net.
Anyway it's very frustrating for us neanderthals who like to have something physical in out hands when we buy a film!
whereas on the contrary music files, which someone took the care and attention to play beautifully for you, are freely available on the internet.
Why this double standard on the part of the music industry and film industry? Why should people so easily at the flick of a switch be able to break music copyright laws when films are so heavily protected?

I think it may have something to do with spans of attention and the modern child's addiction to things visual (at the expense of the musical or audio.)

We are in an age which puts a premium on the visual, at the expense of the audio. Take this latest explosion of so-called "3-D". I have never used one but think it an unecessary encumbrance. Film reviewer Mark Kermode ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/markkermode/2009/12/come_in_number_3d_your_time_is.html ) agrees with me, for different reasons.
What does 3-D mean? It is a nonsense and was first tried and abandoned years ago (rightly so!) I live in a world which is what I might call "3-and-a-half-D" i.e. I (hopefully) have freedom of movement in 3 and half dimensions (time being a "one-way" dimension,) but what does sitting as a passive observer immersed in an illusiory multi dimensional visual architecture mean to me?
In effect it is narrowing down the gap between observer and observed in a quite insidious and obsequious way.
Finally, when I am watching a film with some friends, I am also sharing in their enjoyment of it. I am watching the film, yes, but I am also watching my companions to see THEIR reactions. That is part of the enjoyment of the film.
3-D is no assurance of good acting skills amongst the protagonists. It asists the levelling of experience into mere sensation and sates the visual appetite with things, not necessarily healthy. The on-and-off flickering of the powered glasses cannot be healthy and probably epileptics cannot watch with them.

[VonSpyder]

its a tedeous process but heres what you do:

buy video input device (Dazzle/tv tuner card/Composite input device)
Hook VCR up to it.
Choose video streamrecorder program of your choice
tell it to record video file from input stream device.
burn saved file to dvd using dvd authoring program of your choice (I like DVDstyler myself)

handy if your going to do some video editing as well, otherwise just buy the dvd...

...or download the torrent.. [-X

[mocha]

I convert VHS to DVD quite a bit with Linux. I use a Hauppauge PVR-250 card which is nice because it encodes straight to MPEG2 ES which is ready to go straight into VOBs without re-encoding. To perform the captures I use all command line tools and can make it very sophisticated since I like to have fine grain control over bitrates, GOP size, audio, etc.. It's really easy to use the v4l2 command line program to set bitrates, resolution, and so forth, and then just use mplayer to dump the input into a file. This process can be scripted as well so it's just as simple as executing a single file.

As far as removing level 1 and 2 macrovision, look for this device http://www.amazon.com/Sima-SCC-Video-Color-Corrector/dp/B0000695AO. I've had one of those since the 90's and they work great. There are much simpler ones available with just an input and output and 9V battery. These products are usually sold under the terminology "digital video stabilizer" or something like that. Don't expect to find one called a "macrovison defeater" or "macrovision stripper"! ;)

[CJ_Hudson]

Please, is it possible for capture be done with a videocard such as this one on e-bay (link below) with S-Video input, or do you have to have a TV card?

LINK (www.cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=190475328548&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT)

P.S. ...in Windows XP or Ubuntu Meerkat.

i.e. is the s-video on most cards both input and output?

[rob22941]

I have the Dazzle DVC 100 video capture cable, I'm close to returning it to Best Buy. I've tried the darn Studio 12 software and VLC (linux and 7) can't seem to get anything to stream from the vcr. Can anyone help me with this, to be honest I don't care if I do it in linux or 7 just need to get these home videos onto dvd...

[heyandy889]

Hey, stumbled across this thread with a Google search "how to convert disney vhs to dvd." My pal wants to digitize her VHS collection, so she is kinda bummed that the Disney stuff is "copy protected." From what I've read on forums and Wikipedia, looks like this "Macrovision" is to blame for making video rips difficult. Not really sure if it makes sense to prevent the owner from making copies for personal use. On the other hand, I suppose that it's pretty easy to abuse the privilege of "making personal copies."

As far as making a copy, you could make a bootleg copy by positioning a camera on a tripod in front of your TV and playing the video. The quality would suffer a fair amount, though. Ha ha. Also, that enters the territory of breaking any copyrights on the video.

[trooperchix]

It's a bugger. I think we own every movie they put out through the late 90's.

[jmore9]

What i have done for a friend is hook up his old vhs machine to his tv tuner card 3 yrs ago that is , and he just recorded it like a tv broadcast . It worked really simple, no extra stuff to buy.

[dazndom]

http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/248203-Converting-VHS-to-DVD-under-Linux-HOWTO