Solved How to transfer VHS Video onto a DVD

Hi,
I’m a newbie in the world of movie studio (platinum 12) and have looked at several you tube videos, websites etc.. and your is without doubt the best. So thanks for the knowledge / help you have already shared with us all.

My project is to take all our family vhs tapes and burn them to DVD. I've invested in a good vhs player and have a advc convertor, resulting in our vhs tapes being converted into .avi files.

I’m struggling to find the best way to turn these into dvd’s using movie studio and would really appreciate your help.

• Some of my tapes won’t fit onto 1 dvd.
• Quality on the dvd doesn't appear as good as the .avi file (when viewed on the pc compared to the dvd).
• I’m not sure whether I need to render in movie studio and then select option to burn to dvd and whether I’m selecting the correct/best settings etc..

Any help would be warmly received - I will also donate to your website.
thanks Andy

Hi Andy

Thanks for posting this in the forum.

I have an in-depth tutorial which teaches how to fit long videos onto a DVD. I have used this method myself to make 100's of DVDs. You will not find a better method for creating DVDs.
Read and watch this:
www.moviestudiozen.com/free-tutorials/dvd-architect-studio-50/493-how-to-compress-a-long-video-onto-a-dvd
If you have large amount of video, you can use the method I teach and record to 4.7GB Single Layer or 8.5GB Dual Layer Discs.

There will always be a certain amount of quality loss when transferring from Analogue Tape to Digital Video to DVD - each transcode is going to reduce some data. You do not need to or should be, re-rendering your videos over and over again. It can all be done in one step, exactly like I show in the tutorial above. Every DVD in the Universe uses the MPEG2 video codec to encode to - this is an International Standard.

The one thing you can do to improve the quality, is to apply Colour Correction and adjust Brightness & Contrast - I would consider this the most important step when transferring Video from Tape to DVD. I will be uploading a new tutorial on this topic in the next couple of days.

Regards
Derek.

Hi Andy, I transfer tape to digital (including DVD) for a living. Derek's reply is great (especially understanding bit rates). You didn't mention what sort of A/D converter you are using but it can make all the difference in quality. The cheap ones $40-$50 won't give the quality you want, especially if the video has a lot of motion and/or bright color. Grass Valley makes good converters.

If you know that you are capturing the video for the primary purpose of making DVD's, don't capture to AVI or any other format that will need conversion. Capture in MPEG-2 if you have that option. This will help with the quality.

Another way to convert that will give excellent results is by using a good quality dvd recorder. The hardware is already designed specifically for video conversion and what you see on the tape is exactly what you get. For video longer than can normally fit, they already have the option to record longer videos. They do it by adjusting the bitrate but not as precisely as using a bitrate calculator. You can import the MPEG-2 file out of the VOB file on the disc directly to Movie Studio for editing by going to Projects/Import DVD Camcorder Disc (right below the "import media" button).

Personally, if a video is too long to fit on a disc, I split it into a two disc or dual layer project to maintain quality, unless I have a customer who insist they want it on one standard disc, but they always get a warning that quality will suffer.

Thanks Derek, very useful (as always). I look forward to the colour correction tutorial.

cheers

Thanks Preservation - much appreciated advice & information.

I have a ADVC-110 converter - can I convert my vhs tapes straight to mepg-2? If so can I do that using Movie Studio?

I started importing the vhs tapes using windows (at the time I didn't have movie studio) hence .avi files.

When I saw some of Derek's great you tube videos, I decided to purchase movie studio and now I just need to figure out the best way to convert my remaining 30+ family videos

Thanks to all for there help - great forum.

The workflow for what you are doing works like this.

1. Video from VCR goes to AD Video Converter.
2. This is then Outputted/Saved to MPEG2 Video format using the software that should have come with the Converter.
3. Next you Import the MPEG2 Video into Movie Studio to Edit it and apply Colour Correction.
4. Render/Make Movie to MPEG2 Video for DVD.
5. Import into DVD Architect to create DVDs with Menus.

thanks again I really appreciate all the help & guides. Cheers

Hi all,

It appears that my advc converter does not have any software, I only get the option to import using the windows software, which is why I end up with .avi files (I think).

I'm looking into purchasing some "importing" software and wondered what you use / recommend.

I've looked Diamond One-Touch Video Capture VC500, which has some great reviews.

Once imported, I will use movie studio to edit and burn to DVD.

thanks again

You should definitely have got some software with the Converter - that is very strange.
Do you know the Make and Model for the Converter you already have ?

AndyP wrote: Hi all,

It appears that my advc converter does not have any software, I only get the option to import using the windows software, which is why I end up with .avi files (I think).

I'm looking into purchasing some "importing" software and wondered what you use / recommend.

I've looked Diamond One-Touch Video Capture VC500, which has some great reviews.

Once imported, I will use movie studio to edit and burn to DVD.

thanks again

I can tell you that the 110 is a far better product than the VC500 which is crap (I have experience with that converter). The software that comes with it is crap. Do yourself a favor and stick with the Grass Valley 110 and use good software to convert the file. You can edit the AVI and then render it as MPEG 2..... Follow the Doctor's instructions and render audio separately. Or you can just let DVD Arch do the conversion for you. I REPEAT... The VC 500 will be nothing but headache (complete with pulled out hair) and super duper poor results. Well, good luck with your projects.