Video Capture Quits Unexpectedly - Never Finishes Recording Entire Tape

[Yolanda]

I have VHS to DVD for Mac. We have it connected to our VCR + DVD player. We have not been able to complete a full VHS to DVD conversion because it crashes. The only other apps running at the time are Chrome.

 

When it crashes (see attached error message), the RECORDING stops, the counter resets to zero, but the VHS continues to play. It also does not create the converted file. I restart the recording, and finish the tape, it dies create a converted file, and from the looks of it, the converted file is fine - albiet partial (I've not tried yet to copy it to DVD).

 

The first time I received this error, I had PREFERENCES set for the destination to my computer. I changed that to my external Seagate drive and I still experience the crashes.

 

It has crashed at least 5 times. The first several crashes occurred towards the end of the tape, another crashed 20 minutes into the tape.

 

Help! What do we need to do to get passed this?

[tsantee]

I don't know what is causing it. If you haven't done this, please choose Medium quality rather than high quality. Medium quality is still high quality but it encodes as h.264 (same format used by Apple TV) rather than Apple Intermediate Codec. The latter has a much larger file size so the drive must write much faster which increases the chance for error.

 

I presume you have plenty of available hard drive space.

 

Another possibility is there is a defect in your Mac's RAM. There is a freeware app called Rember (search for it at macupdate.com) that can do a thorough test of your Mac's RAM.

[Yolanda]

thanks so much for the tip. I have downloaded Rember and ran it - passed with fling colors. I will try this again tonight on medium quality and will get back to you. Thanks again!

[Yolanda]

ok - so the crashing problem is solved and I am able to create MOV files. Now when I go to play a DVD that I burned from these MOV files, our DVD player message is "disk unknown." We get this message when using either of these DVD formats: - DVD+RW 4x; and DVD-R 8x. What do I need to do to get the DVDs that I burn to play on my DVD player. Note, we have tried in both of our DVD players (one is built into the TV, the other is separate).

 

Help! Thanks...

[tsantee]

ok - so the crashing problem is solved and I am able to create MOV files. Now when I go to play a DVD that I burned from these MOV files, our DVD player message is "disk unknown." We get this message when using either of these DVD formats: - DVD+RW 4x; and DVD-R 8x. What do I need to do to get the DVDs that I burn to play on my DVD player. Note, we have tried in both of our DVD players (one is built into the TV, the other is separate).

 

Help! Thanks...

The video captured by the Easy VHS to DVD is in a different format than what is used by DVD players. It also needs to be "authored" in the language for a video DVD. This is done with applications such as Toast. If you have Toast, choose the Video window and select DVD-video as the format. Prepare the menu the way you want and click the burn button. Toast then will make it compatible.

 

Roxio has a different application titled "Easy VHS to DVD Capture" that you can download from Roxio's software updates page. It captures video in MPEG 2 format used by video DVDs. However, that video still needs to be "authored" to the video DVD specs in order to be playable on a DVD player. The only advantage of using this application, therefore, is to save the time spent re-encoding from h.264 to MPEG 2.

[Yolanda]

Wow - ok, so if I understand, I can keep VCR to DVD and buy Toast to convert the files created to a format compatible with a DVD player. Can the Toast software by itself perform this function without VCR to DVD? I see there are many versions of Toast. Ideally, since we've converted two movies of the 30, I would not mind returning VCR to DVD for Toast, but I need to know what version of Toast to buy.

 

Toast II Titanium - Mac DVD-Rom has capture ability but mentions nothing about the ability to convert VCR (everything else but that). SO, can you answer for me if I need Toast in addition to VCR to DVD, or just the mac-daddy (pun intended) of Toast. If the latter is true, which version of Toast do you recommend?

 

While I still need one last HELP, you have thus far been incredibly helpful! This last piece is so important. I'm glad I read this now so I didn't record any more.

[Yolanda]

Wow - ok, so if I understand, I can keep VCR to DVD and buy Toast to convert the files created to a format compatible with a DVD player. Can the Toast software by itself perform this function without VCR to DVD? I see there are many versions of Toast. Ideally, since we've converted two movies of the 30, I would not mind returning VCR to DVD for Toast, but I need to know what version of Toast to buy.

 

Toast II Titanium - Mac DVD-Rom has capture ability but mentions nothing about the ability to convert VCR (everything else but that). SO, can you answer for me if I need Toast in addition to VCR to DVD, or just the mac-daddy (pun intended) of Toast. If the latter is true, which version of Toast do you recommend?

 

While I still need one last HELP, you have thus far been incredibly helpful! This last piece is so important. I'm glad I read this now so I didn't record any more.

 

Actually used iDVD One Step DVD From Movie (on the file I created with VCR to DVD) and it works great! Thanks again!!