[gfcatlanta]

I'm new to using Roxio EMC8. Have this on WindowsXP PC, with ATI Radeon All-in-wonder 2006 edition graphics card. Would greatly appreciate some basic steps (and patience with newbieness) on how to transfer a few old VHS tapes to DVD, so we have "uniform" media in living room...

1) Would the first step be to simply plug VCR output up to ATI card inputs, put VCR tape in (mostly home movies, some old retail movies) and capture it to a ___.avi file, or is there another format like mpeg2 that would not "loose" quality

2) Once have this file, is the application to start with "My DVD"

3) What happens with "Chapters"... does the application "know" where to put start/finish of chapter1, chapter2, chapter3, chapter39, chapter40, etc.?? How would it "know", when a VCR is just a straight-through tape?

4) Does it create a "Menu"? Is this "normal"? Shouldn't you just put the DVD in and let it "start" on its own, like a VCR tape does?

5) Is there a "guess" as to how much time this will take, start to finish? __ hours for a 1-hour VCR tape. Is most time in the capture, editing, buring, or something else?

Thanks!
George

[ogdens]

gfcatlanta, on Sep 28 2006, 10:54 AM, said:

I'm new to using Roxio EMC8. Have this on WindowsXP PC, with ATI Radeon All-in-wonder 2006 edition graphics card. Would greatly appreciate some basic steps (and patience with newbieness) on how to transfer a few old VHS tapes to DVD, so we have "uniform" media in living room...

1) Would the first step be to simply plug VCR output up to ATI card inputs, put VCR tape in (mostly home movies, some old retail movies) and capture it to a ___.avi file, or is there another format like mpeg2 that would not "loose" quality

2) Once have this file, is the application to start with "My DVD"

3) What happens with "Chapters"... does the application "know" where to put start/finish of chapter1, chapter2, chapter3, chapter39, chapter40, etc.?? How would it "know", when a VCR is just a straight-through tape?

4) Does it create a "Menu"? Is this "normal"? Shouldn't you just put the DVD in and let it "start" on its own, like a VCR tape does?

5) Is there a "guess" as to how much time this will take, start to finish? __ hours for a 1-hour VCR tape. Is most time in the capture, editing, buring, or something else?

Thanks!
George

See if anything in here helps you: http://forums.support.roxio.com/index.php?...0037&hl=vhs

[sknis]

[quote name='gfcatlanta' date='Sep 28 2006, 09:54 AM' post='54841'
Is there a "guess" as to how much time this will take, start to finish? __ hours for a 1-hour VCR tape. Is most time in the capture, editing, buring, or something else?
Thanks!
George [/quote]

You asked the magic question. A lot of that depends on your computer and how fast it is and how much memory. Capture is a 1:1. Encoding a captured video, if it is not in the proper mpg2 format can take from 2 to 4 times the length of the video. Burning is as fast as your burner can handle it. You can cut the time by capturing in mpg2 and then doing no editing. The mpg2 file will not be re-encoded.

Since you are "new", please remember. You can get only one hour of best quality video on a DVD. You can get a little more than 1:50 on a DVD at reduced quality but still very watchable. After that, the quality goes down. Double those amounts for double later DVD. Since you want to copy entire VHS movies, that may be 2 plus hours long, you would have to do something else (if not the double layer discs)

You can capture and then encode the movies into a highly compressed video file called DIVX. You will be able to get several hours of video on a DVD BUT you need a set top player that will play the divx discs. They are becoming less expensive. They will play normal DVDs also. If you are in need of a new player, this may be the way to go for you. I understand that the quality is pretty good but I have not seen one. Video Wave will encode those divx files.

Did we answer all the questions? Here is the EMC 8 manual. to help.

This post has been edited by sknis: 28 September 2006 - 11:57 AM