Question: I want to convert old VHS tapes to DVD. What video card,
software, and dvd burner would work best together to capture, edit,
render and burn to DVD?
Is there a procedure that works best to add music, pictures,
transitions and menus?

I believe it is important to keep the same type of codex (algorithm)
throughout --- but that’s way over my head.

I have a Gateway 500x w/ 2.4Mhz cpu, Intel® 865 chipset,768MB ram and
large
7, 200rpm hard drive. My video card doesn’t have RCA inputs, but the
sound card has
‘line-in’.

I’ve been using a Dazzle 100 external capture device and the Dazzle
edit software, but the MyDVD burning software didn’t work much so I
used Roxie to burn but the video quality isn’t as good as the VHS
tape.
My DVD burner is a Teac –R –RW. What advantages does +R +RW have?

CableMe,

I should leave this to someone more qualified to make a complete
answer, but I can offer a few valid points for consideration.

The different DVD standards are definitely not relevant to your
problem. Whether you use DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW or even DVD-RAM,
is only going to limit what DVD drives on which you can play back your
results. It will not affect the quality of the end result at all.

This quality will depend on the quality of your source media and of
the software you're using to convert VHS to a digital file.

Your PC is certainly up to spec for the job, as far as CPU and RAM go.
The bigger the hard drive the better.

I would recommend buying a dedicated graphics card that is designed
for this sort of work. The All-in-Wonder versions of the ATI Radeon
series are specifically designed for video capture and come with
professional software to do the job. I can recommend the one I use
(9000 Pro Sapphire) but there are many other similar cards out there
and some may well be of even better quality.

The major work should be in converting the VHS stream into a usable
digital file. Writing it to DVD should be simple and trouble free and
should not affect quality. DVD writing software, like CD writing
software, is designed to make a perfect copy and anything else would
be complete failure. If the file plays fine from your hard drive, it
should play fine from DVD.

Poe

The most important factor is going to be the video capture.

You need to capture the video with the best quality possible -
although given that your source is VHS, you should have quite a bit of
leeway.

I suspect that the Dazzle device you are using is not going to provide
the best quality capture. You should get a dedicated capture card, as
the previous poster suggested. However rather than a combined
VGA/Capture card, I would reccommend a stand-alone capture card.

You need to make sure your captures are at full resolution (640x480 in
NTSC or 720x576 in PAL).

DVDs are encoded as MPEG2 video at between 2 and 12 megabit generally.
However some DVD players will have trouble beyond about 6 megabit (the
higher bitrate, the better the video). However it's very unlikely you
will be able to capture directly to MPEG2, it will need to be
converted.

There is a huge amount of information available at
http://www.dvdrhelp.com/

Good luck.

Regards, 
Sycophant-ga

I would recommend that you consider the Panasonic DVD-RAM recorders if
your video archives are of importance. DVD-RAM is about the only
archival media available to consumers and the Panasonic recorders are
capable of extra ordinary video performance - much superior to the PC
based products I've seen.

The drawbacks of this scheme are 1. Higher media costs than using non
sectored media  2. Limited media support (Panasonic and Hitachi are
the major evangelists for this format) 3. And a baffling lack of
editing/conversion software which can handle AC3 (Dolby) .VRO files.

That said - there is no other format which offers a 30-100 year
service life. Those 9.4GB enclosed cartridges are favored by the
broadcast industry for just this reason.
Enterprise/corporate/government users maintain critical backups on
DVD-RAM or MO optical for the same reasons.


Panasonic continues to refine their video recorders and their next
generation (Sep 2004) will offer many of the features of the ReplayTV
(networking, streaming, remote access). Then again, an older used unit
will record with identical clarity but at trivial cost.

Recording archives without compression (using the DV format) might be
a better choice if you can maintain multiple copy fault tolerance.
Just remember that the archival service life of mini DV tapes is truly
unknown.

I would like to recommend the following software:

CANOPUS ProCoder 2.0 
http://www.canopus.us/US/products/Index/product_index.asp

For burning, you can use Nero Burning Rom
http://www.ahead.de/us/index.html