If you love technology and want only the best to help protect your business, security video cameras can help you a lot. There are a lot of various styles of surveillance camera systems out there to pick from based on how sophisticated you would like the camera to be. For amazing deals on a surveillance camera, check online.

Converting Your VHS Tapes To Video CD or DVD, Part 1

By: Brien M. Posey

 Reprinted With Permission From

We’ve all seen video tapes that have tracking problems that are so bad that the tape is almost unwatchable. A number of factors can cause these tracking problems, but one of the biggest factors is the age of the tape. Over the years, things like magnetic interference, background radiation, dust, and general wear and tear all contribute to a big loss of quality in the video image. The point is that VHS tapes have been in the mainstream for almost 20 years. In these 20 years, you’ve probably accumulated some home movies or other favorite tapes that you’d really like to keep forever. The trick is to stop the aging process. One way of doing so is to convert the tape to some form of digital media that isn’t susceptible to the aging problems of video tape. In this article, I’ll show you how to convert your video tapes into two such media formats; a video CD and a DVD.

 What’s A Video CD?

 We all know what a DVD is, but If you’ve never heard of a video CD, you’re not alone. Video CDs have been around since the mid 1990s, but the format was never widely publicized. Video CDs are basically a cheap alternative to DVDs. A video CD uses a regular CD to store about an hour of video and sound. A video CD doesn’t offer near the image quality of a DVD, but it’s a whole lot cheaper to produce.

 To see why video CDs are so much cheaper than DVDs, consider that a blank CD-R disk costs about $0.50 while a blank DVD costs about $14.00. CD-RW drives cost under $100, while an entry level DVD-RW drive costs $600.00. As you can see, there’s quite a difference is cost.

 An Overview of the Process

 Creating a video CD or a DVD from a VHS tape involves several major steps. The first step is to transfer video from the video tape to a computer. There are a number of ways to do this. A number of video capture devices exist that can convert an analog signal from your VCR into a digital signal that your computer understands. Although these devices do work, you’ll usually end up with better quality if you import the video via your computer’s 1394 fire wire port. A fire wire port is capable of transferring data at 400 Megabits per second, and is therefore ideal for capturing digital video. Unfortunately, very few, if any, VCRs have fire wire capability. Therefore, the trick is to transfer the video from the video tape onto a fire wire compatible device, such as a camcorder, and then onto the computer.

 Once the video has been transferred onto the computer, the next step is to edit the video. The editing process is your opportunity to add things like background music, transition effects, or text to your movie. Of course you don’t have to edit the video, it’s just an option that you can use to do any clean up work that you feel is necessary.

 After editing the video, the next step is to compile the video into a format that can be used by your digital media. If you’re creating a Video CD, you’ll be using the MPEG-1 format. If you’re making a DVD, you’ll be using the MPEG-2 format. Converting a video into an MPEG format isn’t difficult at all since the computer does all of the work.

 Finally, it’s time to create the video CD or DVD. This process involves creating any desired menus, adding your MPEG-1 video to the CD layout, and finally, burning the CD.

 The Hardware

 As you read the hardware section, remember that our reason for creating a video CD or a DVD is to help preserve your videos. Because of this, I recommend using as high end of hardware for the process as possible. In this section, I’ll review my hardware recommendations, and why I see them as being necessary or helpful.

The VCR

There’s no way to make a video CD with image quality that exceeds that of the original video tape. Therefore, if the video tape is flickering, jumping, or having color problems during the capture process, then your video CD will inherit those same problems. Because of this, it’s absolutely essential to make the video tape play as well as possible during the capture process.

 If the tape has the problems that I described above, one trick that sometimes works is to play the tape back in the VCR that originally recorded it. Sometimes, VCRs heads are aligned a little bit differently, and these slight differences in alignment can make a big difference in how well tapes are played back.

 If using the original VCR doesn’t solve the problem, or if the original VCR isn’t available, try cleaning the VCR’s heads. You can buy a cleaning kit at any video store. You can also use a q-tip and rubbing alcohol to clean the heads yourself, as shown in Figure A. What ever method you use, just be sure to let the heads dry before playing the tape again.

 Figure A

If cleaning doesn’t work, try pressing Play and then fast forwarding to the end of the tape while the tape is playing. When the tape reaches the end, rewind the tape while the tape is playing. Sometimes this technique will temporarily fix tracking problems.

If all else fails, try getting your hands on a high end VCR. The VCR shown in Figure B only costs about $200, but offers the best possible playback because of its 19 micro heads.

Figure B

The Camcorder

 As I mentioned earlier, you’ll be using the camcorder as a medium for transferring the video from VHS tape to what ever video format that the camcorder supports (usually 8 mm), and then from the camcorder’s tape onto the computer. This means that there are several requirements that the camcorder will have to meet.

 First, the camcorder must have a 1394 fire wire port. Otherwise, you won’t be able to transfer the video to the computer. Some older camcorders use a serial port or a USB port as a method of interfacing with a computer. However, such methods offer inferior video quality. For our purposes, fire wire is pretty much a must.

 The camcorder must also have the ability to record from an external analog video source. I personally use a Sony Digital Handycam (model DCR-TRV320). Like most other video cameras, this video camera contains ports that you can use to plug the camera into a television. However, these ports can also be used for recording video. To do so, plug the cables into your VCR’s video out ports rather than into a television. Next, set the camera to VTR mode and then press the record button and the blank button next to it on the top of the camera. (not to be mistaken for the record button that you normally use when taping).  The camera is now taping what ever the VCR is playing. You can use the camera’s LCD screen to monitor the taping process.

 The Computer

 In order to successfully perform video capture and editing, your computer must also have some fairly high end hardware. Lower end hardware will usually capture video, but will occasionally drop frames. You’ll notice dropped frames during the video playback, because the video will appear choppy. There are also brief, but very noticeable losses of sound associated with lost frames. The lower end that the hardware is, the more dropped frames that you can expect.

 Let’s start with the basics. Obviously, the computer must have a fire wire port and a CD or DVD burner. In addition, the Windows XP operating system is a must. Don’t even think about using Windows 98 for this process. I captured a 10 minute video on a machine that was running Windows 98 and had several hundred frames dropped. I upgraded the same machine to Windows XP without changing any hardware, and am now able to capture video with no frame drops.

 In addition to the basics, your computer must have a fast processor, and lots of memory and hard disk space. I recommend a minimum of a 1.7 GHz Pentium 4 processor and 256 MB of memory. I also recommend having a hard disk that’s specifically dedicated to video capture. This is because of the way that Windows works. Windows is constantly reading and writing to the system hard drive. If one of these read or write operations occur during a video capture, the result is one or more dropped frames. However, because these reads and writes typically occur on the hard disk that Windows is loaded on, you can easily solve the problem by using a dedicated hard disk for video capture. I recommend using an 80 GB dedicated drive. 80 GB will give you plenty of room for capturing and editing video. While it’s true that a video CD only holds 650 MB of data and a DVD-RW only holds about 4.5 GB, you’ll need a lot more space than the media’s capacity, because you’ll have to store a lot of temporary files during the process.

 Another thing to consider on your computer is sound. Technically speaking, just about any sound card will work. However, if you’re producing DVDs or video CDs in which you’d like to have really good sound quality, then it makes sense to get a high end sound card and some digital speakers to go along with it. I personally use the Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum, and a set of Klipsch digital THX speakers.  I’ve had fantastic luck with this sound card and speaker combo.

 Software

 Now that you’re familiar with the hardware requirements, let’s review the necessary software. As I said earlier, you’ll need to be running the Windows XP operating system, but you’ll also need some software to do the video capturing and editing, as well as some software to burn your finished video onto a video CD or DVD.

 Windows XP actually comes with a program called Windows Movie Maker, shown in Figure C. While this program will work, it only covers the basics. I recommend springing for some commercial grade video capture and editing software. I’ve personally had great luck with Sony’s Studio DV. It’s easy to use and is specifically designed to work with Sony camcorders.

Figure C

 You’ll also need some software that’s designed to burn your video onto the blank media. If you’re creating a video CD, then I recommend using Roxio’s Easy CD Creator version 5.0 Platinum. You can see an example of this software in Figure D.

Figure D

 If you’re creating a DVD and you happen to own an HP DVD-RW drive, then the software that comes with the drive, shown in Figure E, is just as good as any third party DVD creation software that’s presently on the Market. If you don’t own an HP DVD writer, then I recommend using a program called Pinnacle Express as your DVD creation software. You can see a sample of this software in Figure F.

Figure E

Figure F

 Conclusion

 Now that I’ve discussed the basic concepts involved and the necessary hardware, it’s time to begin the creation process. I’ll discuss this process in detail in Part 2.

 Read Part 2

If you've found this article helpful then please consider making a donation to help with the cost of keeping this site going. To make a donation, please click on the PayPal link below.