coverting VHS tapes to DVDs

Is there any software that will enable one to convert commercial VHS
tapes to DVD? A friend has a few VHS movies that are not available on
DVD. (It looks like they never made it to DVD.) She still has her old
VHS player, although it hasn't been used in many years.

If this isn't possible, is there a way she can convert just the audio to
a form that she can listen to? She's blind, so she doesn't actually
watch the movies...

--
Thank you,
Jo-Anne

On 01/07/2017 23:07, Jo-Anne wrote:
Is there any software that will enable one to convert commercial VHS
tapes to DVD? A friend has a few VHS movies that are not available on
DVD. (It looks like they never made it to DVD.) She still has her old
VHS player, although it hasn't been used in many years.

If this isn't possible, is there a way she can convert just the audio
to a form that she can listen to? She's blind, so she doesn't actually
watch the movies...

You need to find something like this:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/vhs-to-dvd-converter-for-pc-and-mac-a83qb

For USA you need to do a search like this:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=VHS+to+DVd&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b&gfe_rd=cr&ei=ch9YWZzLA7Ok8weilb7gBQ#q=vhs+to+dvd +converter

Google is the best tool I have found so far but for some reasons people
don't seem to use it as much as they should!!

I have Panasonic DVD player that has VHS player built into it and I can
create DVDs from VHS tapes quite easily. The problem is you have to
play these tapes to record them on to DVD and so very time consuming.



--
With over 500 million devices now running Windows 10, customer
satisfaction is higher than any previous version of windows.

On 07/01/2017 06:07 PM, Jo-Anne wrote:
Is there any software that will enable one to convert commercial VHS
tapes to DVD? A friend has a few VHS movies that are not available on
DVD. (It looks like they never made it to DVD.) She still has her old
VHS player, although it hasn't been used in many years.

If this isn't possible, is there a way she can convert just the audio to
a form that she can listen to? She's blind, so she doesn't actually
watch the movies...

load something like acoustica, or even the built in sound recorder then
just plug the audio out jacks of your vcr into the audio in on your
sound card. (not video). Play the vhs and hit record on pc.


Without a long drawn out explanation.

On 07/01/2017 06:22 PM, Big Al wrote:
On 07/01/2017 06:07 PM, Jo-Anne wrote:
Is there any software that will enable one to convert commercial VHS
tapes to DVD? A friend has a few VHS movies that are not available on
DVD. (It looks like they never made it to DVD.) She still has her old
VHS player, although it hasn't been used in many years.

If this isn't possible, is there a way she can convert just the audio
to a form that she can listen to? She's blind, so she doesn't actually
watch the movies...

load something like acoustica, or even the built in sound recorder then
just plug the audio out jacks of your vcr into the audio in on your
sound card. (not video). Play the vhs and hit record on pc.


Without a long drawn out explanation.


Excuse me. I meant Audacity not Acoustica. I use Acoustica for
printing CD/DVD labels.

Jo-Anne wrote:
Is there any software that will enable one to convert commercial VHS
tapes to DVD? A friend has a few VHS movies that are not available on
DVD. (It looks like they never made it to DVD.) She still has her old
VHS player, although it hasn't been used in many years.

If this isn't possible, is there a way she can convert just the audio to
a form that she can listen to? She's blind, so she doesn't actually
watch the movies...


First, I'll address the general requirement to capture
the output of a VCR.

These products have almost disappeared from the market.

And the ones you may find, won't be the best.

This is purely a visual sample of what they look like.
The ratings on this particular one aren't very good.

"StarTech SVID2USB23 USB S-Video & Composite Audio Video Capture Cable"
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...82E16815158282

So what you notice on one end, is a pile of cables.

The red, white, yellow, is stereo audio and composite video.
The back of the VCR should have a matching color scheme.

Now, instead of the yellow, there is also a black MiniDin
on that one. That's S-Video, which has luminance, chrominance,
gnd, gnd, as its four electrical connections. On a proper
capture device, the luminance and chrominance are captured
separately. On a "bodge job", you combine the two signals
with a capacitor, and get a "sorta Composite" signal from it.
So if they cheat, that path is no better than the yellow plug.

So read-white is stereo sound.

Yellow is video. (Black 4-pin can also be video...)

*******

Now, the good news. For your blind friend, you can do
audio-only capture, using nothing more than a passive cable.
The sound card on the computer has "Line In", which is
probably blue in color. Check the computer or audio card
manual to verify the color and position of the connector
on the faceplate. The colors of these connectors aren't
all that saturated, and I sometimes need extra light to
tell one from another. The color sample shown in this
article is a good likeness.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_System_Design_Guide

Light blue Analog line level audio input 3.5 mm TRS

You need to convert the red and white Cinch/RCA connectors
to the 1/8" blue audio connector the computer sound card has.
You connect the signal to the blue Line In connector.
Then, use your favorite capture application.

For example, this cable for $7, has red-white on one end (for the
VCR end) and a 1/8" plug (tip/ring/sleeve) for the computer end.
When you buy these, you want to make sure both ends are male. As
otherwise, you'll need to buy yet more junk later to fix it :-)
This advert should probably read 3.5mm "Plug" instead of the
word "Jack". If you buy cables like these at the local
stereo/TV store, be prepared to pay as much as $50. They're
going to be cheaper online. The nice thing about the stereo/TV
store, is you might manage to get the cable tonight.

"3.5mm Jack to 2 RCA Phono Plug Male to Male Audio $7"
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...9SIA27C3TP6638

I'm sure there are plenty of audio capture programs out
there. This one will cause some hair loss while you learn
what the controls do, but... it's free. It records stereo
no problem at all. You use File : Export, to save the output.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audaci...udio_editor%29

http://www.audacityteam.org/

If you are worried about file space needed, you can save
in MP3 format. On older versions of Audacity, this required
the download of a separate LAME plugin at some point. The
web page should have more details on what to do. Without
LAME, you can store the audio in WAV format. If your friend
has Windows 10, FLAC is a built-in audio option, and you
could output to FLAC for a small savings compared to WAV.
But MP3 should really save a *lot* of disk space. Nothing
prevents you from Exporting the file to multiple output
files, so you can compare the quality of playback.

http://www.audacityteam.org/download/plug-ins/

"Libraries

The LAME MP3 encoding library allows Audacity to
export audio in the popular MP3 format. To install
the LAME library, please read our LAME FAQ.

http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/f..._ins.html#lame
"

So, actually, your project is a lot simpler than getting
the video to capture properly. VCRs are just terrible
at playback, due to head roll, and doing a proper VCR video
capture could take you quite a while to do properly. It
takes many experiments to get it right.

HTH,
Paul

On Sat, 01 Jul 2017 17:07:44 -0500, Jo-Anne wrote:

Is there any software that will enable one to convert commercial VHS
tapes to DVD? A friend has a few VHS movies that are not available on
DVD. (It looks like they never made it to DVD.) She still has her old
VHS player, although it hasn't been used in many years.

If this isn't possible, is there a way she can convert just the audio to
a form that she can listen to? She's blind, so she doesn't actually
watch the movies...

You will need a capture device first. Then Ulead Video Studio
does an excellent job.

--
Wildman GNU/Linux user #557453
The cow died so I don't need your bull!

In message , Paul
writes:
[]
Now, the good news. For your blind friend, you can do
audio-only capture, using nothing more than a passive cable.
The sound card on the computer has "Line In", which is
probably blue in color. Check the computer or audio card
[]
Yes, plenty of softwares, including free, which do audio capture. (I
like GoldWave myself - I think I bought it though.)

If the PC is a laptop, however, IME the majority don't have a line-level
stereo input, just a mono mic-level one (usually pink). [Those usually
_accept_ a tip-ring-sleeve connector, but that's used to feed the bias
voltage that electret microphones need, it isn't a stereo input.] And
most of the _cheap_ USB "sound cards" around are the same - they have
stereo _out_put, intended to drive amplified speakers or headphones, but
only a mono mic. input.

I haven't looked in recent years, but I _think_ most desktop machines
still _do_ have a line level input.

Do check that any such input really is stereo - probably by using some
X-Y display; it's easy to convince yourself it is stereo when it isn't.
And some hardware/software combinations will produce a "stereo" _file_,
but one in which the two channels are identical (hence my comment re X-Y
display).

Of course, if the VHS machine isn't "hi-fi", it'll only have mono sound
anyway (and pretty grotty at that, too).

If you _are_ stuck with making mono files, don't forget to set them as
such when creating mp3s or whatever - and reduce (probably half) the
bitrate; it probably doesn't matter these days, but I'd do it for
intellectual satisfaction (I wouldn't like having a file that claimed to
be stereo but wasn't, regardless of any saving in disc space).
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"Everyone is entitled to an *informed* opinion." - Harlan Ellison

In article , says...

Is there any software that will enable one to convert commercial VHS
tapes to DVD? A friend has a few VHS movies that are not available on
DVD. (It looks like they never made it to DVD.) She still has her old
VHS player, although it hasn't been used in many years.

If this isn't possible, is there a way she can convert just the audio to
a form that she can listen to? She's blind, so she doesn't actually
watch the movies...

I assume she has a working VHS player.

For video you need a video capture card that takes either Composite or
SVGA as an input. Such a device usually comes with it's own capture
software. There's a number of options in how to accomplish this. There
are 1) video cards include video capture, 2) there's a separate add-in
card or 3) there's a USB dongle type of device. I've not used the USB
dongle type.

Quality of capture depends considerably on speed of pc being used to
capture. I'm not even sure if this dual core 3Gz Intel 8400 with 4 gigs
ram running Win7 Home Premium will capture at 720x480 at 30fps which is
what dvd quality is.

Insure you purchase one has "mpg" encoding in hardware. That pretty much
insures you can least capture dvd quality mpg files and use them to
create the dvd using something like Nero Vision.

I?ve done this on my own old family recordings had been put on vhs.

The audio part is a lot easier. All you need is a cable has two
composite inputs on one end and a sub-mini jack on the other end (small
headphone jack). Plug the cable into the audio outs of the vcr, plug
other end into sound card on pc's "line in? input, start up recording
software and tell it to record from ?line in? on soundcard, press
software?s ?record? button and press ?play? on vcr. First try might have
to adjust audio level is about all can go wrong.

Note - capture the audio to ?wav? format. You can easily convert it to
other formats after it?s recorded. Also note that a music cd only holds
80Min audio to unolikely an entire movie fits on a cd as a music cd. If
they are going to listen using a pc, the wav file converted to mp3 would
easily fit on a cd, like 2 or even 3 ?just audio as mp3? likely would.

I?ve never made a dvd that?s an audio disk like a cd can be, Unsure if
such a thing even exists? That said almost all dvd players now play wav,
mp3 and a host of other formats so if putting on a dvd go for quality
over size.

Now after all that!!! By far the easiest way is to use a hardware based
dvd recorder as it doesn?t need a pc. I have one I picked up once works
well bought because it?s price was so low compared to normal market
price. I?ve not seen one since isn?t 100?s of dollars where-as this
thing was $100 number of years ago now. Assuming you have one of
these, conversion is as easy as connect two devices together output?s to
input?s, press Record on one and Play on the other and let it go.

Problem with all these methods remains the same. The time it takes is at
least the playing time of the tape. You can?t rip vhs tape like you can
a cd or dvd.

Can?t get help then give me a reply and I?ll do it for them for free
assuming it?s only a couple and they don?t mind some stranger sees them.
You?ll have to deliver as I?m hour outside Dartmouth in Musq. Valley
area which also means too many and it?ll be two trips as you won?t
likely want to hang around for hours while it does it?s job.

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul
writes:
[]
Now, the good news. For your blind friend, you can do
audio-only capture, using nothing more than a passive cable.
The sound card on the computer has "Line In", which is
probably blue in color. Check the computer or audio card
[]
Yes, plenty of softwares, including free, which do audio capture. (I
like GoldWave myself - I think I bought it though.)

If the PC is a laptop, however, IME the majority don't have a line-level
stereo input, just a mono mic-level one (usually pink). [Those usually
_accept_ a tip-ring-sleeve connector, but that's used to feed the bias
voltage that electret microphones need, it isn't a stereo input.] And
most of the _cheap_ USB "sound cards" around are the same - they have
stereo _out_put, intended to drive amplified speakers or headphones, but
only a mono mic. input.

Actually, there are two standards for analog electret microphone.

The (old) mono flavor, is as you describe. Tip might be
the input. Ring is the bias (for electret microphones).
The max current from the bias is pretty small, a milliamp
or two. The intention was, to not interfere with other
microphone types that might be connected. For example, the
DC from the bias is assumed to not upset a dynamic
(moving coil) microphone. DC bias connected to other piezo
or ceramic devices, might cause a deflection of the cone,
but it probably still responds to sound.

The newer flavor is stereo, where the bias is connected to
both tip and ring (effectively a separate resistor for each.

With the mono ones, the microphone shorts tip to ring, so the
bias gets applied. The microphone is basically a two-terminal
device on a TRS plug. And T and R are shorted together by the
microphone itself. For non-electret mono microphones, they could
connect to T and S, without needing R.

On the stereo flavor, the bias is always connected. The bias
is apparently switchable at the codec level, but there's no
evidence in the user interface that this is used. Only Analog
Devices brand codecs have the patented impedance detection feature,
and those might be able to sense a dynamic mic from other types,
and then the bias could be turned off. But otherwise, the assumption
is, the bias is always turned on. Many sound control panel types,
require the user to "verify what was just connected", as a crutch
for not having their own sensing capability.

Some codecs even have bias voltage options, but again, nothing
in the GUI hints at this. If you have a "high-voltage" electret
on a typical lower-voltage codec, you are SOL and the mic won't
work. It's to your advantage to select electrets that work
with 3.3V codec designs. (And again, evidence on the package ?
How would you know, except to have a failure ? If you go to
Digikey or Mouser, you can review the specs on raw electrets,
to see what the market offers.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electret_microphone

In the schematic of the microphone here, the resistor is a
function of the codec, and the inputs are always capacitively
coupled (to prevent just this sort of problem with a high-DC
offset caused by the circuit). The capacitor is on the motherboard.
The stereo microphone would be two instances of this circuit,
with a separate resistor for each channel.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._schematic.png

On the mono microphone, the Tip is probably the capacitor
path, the Ring is the resistor, and the microphone is
then responsible for shorting tip to ring so that
the bias is applied to the top terminal. Don't ask me
how the typical sound chip knows such a Microphone was
plugged into the LineOut - as shorting Left to Right
channel wouldn't be all that good for it.

All the inputs and outputs on the codec are capacitively
coupled, so at least there isn't a DC short between
Left and Right output if you plug the (old) microphone
into LineOut.

As you can see from that, there's a good deal of various
outcomes possible.

I only have one good microphone here, and all I can tell
you is, it isn't an electret. It has a TRRS plug too,
just to make it completely incompatible with PCs. One of
the terminals on it, expects a "hard" +5V source of power.
If you plug the plug into MicIn, nothing happens because
there is no power. I had to make an adapter to use it
with a PC.

Paul

Jo-Anne wrote:

Is there any software that will enable one to convert commercial VHS
tapes to DVD? A friend has a few VHS movies that are not available on
DVD. (It looks like they never made it to DVD.) She still has her old
VHS player, although it hasn't been used in many years.

If this isn't possible, is there a way she can convert just the audio to
a form that she can listen to? She's blind, so she doesn't actually
watch the movies...

Since most VHS movies employ some form of protection, often hooking up
the RCA outputs (left, right, video) of the RCA inputs of the VCR
doesn't work too well. The video will be screwed up; however, since the
video is of no concern to a blind person, the audio should record okay.
Obviously your DVD player has to support burn mode.

Because I wanted the video to look good along with the audio, I used to
have a device that would strip the copy protection from VHS tapes so
they would record okay on the DVD burner. Rather than go through the
computer, I bought a stand-alone DVD burner deck (Go Video brand). Back
then, Best Buy was getting a lot of returns on these burner decks.
Customers were buying them, copying their movies (from whatever source
was connected to the RCA inputs) and then returning them as defective.
They weren't defective. The customers were done with their conversion
and getting their money back. Cheaters. Tis like women that take home
an expensive dresses or other clothing, wearing it to some event but
leaving on the tags (tucked inside), and then returning the unwashed
clothing (phewey, since washing might render the clothing unreturnable)
to get a refund. Cheaters.

The Go Video deck let you do the conversion within the deck. It would
play the tape and record onto the disc so it was literally plug (in) and
play (and record). There was also a Sony model (RDR-VXD655) to do the
same single-unit conversion. None of these consumer-grade units would
work with tapes using Macrovision for copyright protection hence why I
had to employ the S-device to strip out the protection to have a good
quality video on the disc.

I cannot recall the name of the device. You hooked the RCA outputs of
the VCR to this device which had its own power adapter and the output of
the device connected to the RCA inputs of the DVD burner deck. All I
can remember of the name is that I think it started with "S". It got
hot. eBay only goes back 2 years of history so I cannot see my old
purchase (and later I sold it off on eBay). I see nowadays there are
other solutions (than trying to work as a TV tuner to send output past
where Macrovision is stripped), like EasyCap (~$10). Back when I bought
the S-device, it cost me $80. The YouTube videos that I happened to
pick to view about EasyCap were by kids. Yeah, I suppose that's the
biggest market for these devices. I found a commercial-type video at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrbP8fsHxEc. A guy gives some hints on
how to convert VHS to video and includes use of the EasyCap device; see
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn_TDa9zY1c.

Using that S-device back something like 10+ years ago, I was able to
converted all my VHS tapes and my mother's to DVD. That was something
like 400 movies, some of which were Disney movies. Instead of something
like 7 tape drawered organizers along with about 4 cartons of tapes, she
got a disc wallet for all her movies. Once she viewed all the discs, we
got rid of the tapes (some were sold off) and drawered organizers and
just went with discs. The biggest drawback is that you actually have to
play the VHS tape (to use the RCA jacks on the backside of the VHS tape
player deck). So it takes x hours to convert an x-hour long movie. It
took me many months, like half a year, to convert all those tapes during
the evenings after work.

You never said where is the DVD burner to which you want to copy the
movies. Is it a optical drive in your PC or a stand-alone burner deck?
If you want to hook your VHS player to your PC to use the optical burner
drive there, either you'll line a pin-style line-out jack on the VHS
player and a long enough pin-to-pin cable to connect the player to the
line-in jack on your PC (and enable that record input in your Sound
settings) or you'll have to get an RCA-to-pin converter cable. I would
NOT recommend trying to use the heaphone output of the VHS player as
that can easily be a much higher volume than what a line-in jack would
expect.

While trying to find what was that S-device that I used to convert VHS
to DVD (well, to remove the copy protection so the video looked good in
the copy burned to a disc), I noticed the following:

http://www.walgreensdvdtransfer.com/...videotapes.htm

Doesn't look cheap, though. I have no idea what they would do with
copyrighted movies. If it was a legit professional-quality tape then
that should be proof enough that you own the copy of the movie. If you
take them a Disney movie somehow recorded on blank tape you buy
separately with your hand-written label on it, like taped the movie from
broadcast/cable TV, then they might balk at converting it for you. It's
a pirated movie and they're not in the pirating business. Their site
has a "find a store" so you can tell which that has a converter station
nearest to you. If it is something where you simply walk up to the
station to do the convert and their employees aren't involved then you
could get away copying any type of VHS tape to disc. However, I suspect
you hand over the tape to their personally in their photo department. I
have no idea if their process would strip out the Macrovision protection
or if all they're convert process requires unprotected tapes, like those
you recorded yourself (off broadcast/cable TV or using a recorder).
Costco has a similar tape-to-video conversion service. See:

http://www.costcodvd.com/

Considering how much they cost, you might want to dole out the $10 to
see if EasyCap works okay for you.

Now I'm looking at getting a 2TB USB HDD to convert all those discs to
video files. Twould be easier for her to select DVD input on the TV
menu and just pick a movie from the list. She would have to get a smart
TV and one where a USB HDD would work and just one of the many that only
support USB flash drives and then only photo files instead of video
files. The TV vendors aren't really clear on what they support for
formats on the USB input to their models. Well, she doesn't want to
switch to a smart TV for awhile so the discs will do until then.

Don McC wrote:

...

--
Don

FYI: That should be dash dash space newline for a proper signature
delimiter line, not space dash dash newline. Odd but I thought OE used
the correct sigdash line.

In article , says...

Is there any software that will enable one to convert commercial VHS
tapes to DVD? A friend has a few VHS movies that are not available on
DVD. (It looks like they never made it to DVD.) She still has her old
VHS player, although it hasn't been used in many years.

If this isn't possible, is there a way she can convert just the audio to
a form that she can listen to? She's blind, so she doesn't actually
watch the movies...

I?ve found many old movies available thru torrent seaches. Might be
possible to simply download it instead?

In message , pjp
writes:
In article , says...

Is there any software that will enable one to convert commercial VHS
tapes to DVD? A friend has a few VHS movies that are not available on
DVD. (It looks like they never made it to DVD.) She still has her old
VHS player, although it hasn't been used in many years.

If this isn't possible, is there a way she can convert just the audio to
a form that she can listen to? She's blind, so she doesn't actually
watch the movies...

I?ve found many old movies available thru torrent seaches. Might be
possible to simply download it instead?

Or even buy the downloads, if available.

How many are we talking about - numbers, and hours?
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

All that glitters has a high refractive index.

(Just the audio part covered here)

In message , Paul
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul
writes:
[]
If the PC is a laptop, however, IME the majority don't have a
line-level stereo input, just a mono mic-level one (usually pink).
[Those
[]
Actually, there are two standards for analog electret microphone.
[usual Paul excellent information snipped!]
Paul

I just wanted to warn about making any rash assumptions about what's
available as inputs, especially on laptops. I once did some audio
capture using such - I forget now whether it was a mic input or line in,
or possible I didn't even know (I don't think it had the colours on the
socket) - which _appeared_, in the software (mixer or whatever) to be
stereo, but which produced "stereo" files with the same on both
channels.

(If, as I said in an earlier post, the VHS player only has mono output,
the question is moot. But since these are apparently commercial movie
tapes, there's a fair chance they have stereo sound - assuming they're
movies that were made with such originally of course!

Jo-Anne, any input? How many, what sort of era, what soft of player do
you have access to?)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

All that glitters has a high refractive index.

On 2/7/2017 6:07 AM, Jo-Anne wrote:
Is there any software that will enable one to convert commercial VHS
tapes to DVD? A friend has a few VHS movies that are not available on
DVD. (It looks like they never made it to DVD.) She still has her old
VHS player, although it hasn't been used in many years.

Any shops in your area that are offering this kind of service?

--
@~@ Remain silent! Drink, Blink, Stretch! Live long and prosper!!
/ v \ Simplicity is Beauty!
/( _ )\ May the Force and farces be with you!
^ ^ (x86_64 Ubuntu 9.10) Linux 2.6.39.3
�借貸! ��騙! ��交! �打交! �打劫! �自殺! 請考慮綜� (CSSA):
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