[DVD/Video] Converting tapes to dvds

[Muzza]

Fellows,

Most of times I go to a race I take my camcorder with me (Hi-8mm or S-VHS). I would like to convert my tapes to DVDs (digital media).

- Does someone how to do it?
- What does it take?
- Can I do it home? Do I need to buy only a video capturing card and a dvd recorder and these will do it?
- Any special software required?
- Are there any tricks regarding the DVD format (i. e. DVD Zones, as "American" versus "Japanese" DVDs)
- What if instead of doing it myself I would hire the service from a shop/studio. Does anybody know a photo shop or video studio in Los Angeles that would do it for a reasonable price (LA is the capital of the [unreasonably costed] entertainment industry).

Thanks,

Muzza

[Herminator]

Converting to DVD format isn't the best of ideas. There are loads of sites on the net telling you how to convert digital media. You should look at formats such as vcd, and svcd, or avi files. You will only be able to play them on a PC but I doubt you have a DVD drive to burn DVD's for a player.

[Muzza]

Hey, Herminator,

Thanks a lot for the reply. However, what I really want is to record into a "DVD-playable" format - I'm not aiming to play it in a computer, but in a standard DVD player instead.

Indeed, I do not have a DVD burner (at least not yet), but I am willing to buy one if this proves to be the best option (I mean buying the necessary hardware and software versus paying someone to convert the tapes to DVD).

One point in your message drew my curiosity: why did you say that converting to DVD format is not be best idea?

Regards,

Muzza

[StuiE]

I dont know how exactly to convert to DVD format, but DVD burners cost about $2k (about $1k US) and blank DVDs cost loads too

[Benz_7]

why don't you just convert it to VCD as most (if not all) dvd players do play VCDs...i know mine does (Pioneer DV-535) and im sure the newer ones would...

converting to DVD wouldn't be really worth it IMO, as it would cost a fortune, but if you are looking for quality...i suppose if u wanna spend a whole heap more...its your money...

[Muzza]

Fellows,

Thanks for the replies. I guess the two first things I have to do are:

- find out whether my and my sister's DVD players can play VCD-formatted disks;

- learn how to record cds on VCD format (I didn't even know such a format existed...)

Can someone tell me a little more about the VCD format? Some basic questions:

- is this a format which is used by most commercial CD-burners?
- I am about to (finally) buy a CD-burner. Besides that, and of a video capturing card, what else would I need?
- what about software?
- how much info can a CD store? How many minutes of recording, considering average picture quality? (by average I mean as good as the original Hi-8 tape)

Sorry if these are quite basic questions, but I am absoluetly green regarding video edition...

Cheers,

Muzza

[Herminator]

ok, a bitmore info. DVD format is very big, it holds a lot of info for high quality pictures people demand. If you made anything into DVD format it would take up gigabites of space on your HDD and take many hours to convert. VCD is an old video format meant for cd's I think the old Laser Discs used it, but they never got popular since they were very large if they were to store a whole movie and also expensive. You can now get DVD burners for £300 but there are a load of different types, to do with rom and ram types, some of which do cost thousands. Blank DVD's are also stupidly expensive, whereas you can get blank cd-r's for about 17pence each. A cd holds about 750MB, enough for anything you're likely to make. VCD will mean mush smaller files, although it will still take hours to convert types of files. You can also play around with quality, you can set things up to reduce the size of files, with practise you can make things half the size of the original yet make hardly any percievable difference in picture quality. I would get a good burner, for around £100, it should come with some software bt I doubt anything that does vcd. For this you will need to do a search on something like google. You'll find all sorts of prgrams that you can download, some are better than others, some have good tutorials. some are incredibly complicated.

[Benz_7]

i think nero has VCD capabilities, and its probably the first software burning tool you should look into i reckon