Importing VHS Movies to Computer

[Bruce]

I have 30-40 VHS movies each with 6 hours of video. I
have imported digital video to my computer using Movie
Maker 2 and about 1 hour of video translates to about 1GB
of disk space (using video for local playback 2.1 mbps).
I would like to keep the quality of the VHS tapes to at
least a reasonable level when I bring the video into my
computer. Ultimately I am planning to burn the videos to
DVD. My question is this: what are the best settings in
Movie Maker 2 to keep the quality at a good/reasonable
level, but also keep the file size to a reasonable level?
I would like to avoid creating 180-240 DVDs of our home
movies so I'm looking for the best settings to be able to
get the most VHS video on a DVD at a time. Thanks!

 

[PapaJohn]

Bruce,

The Saving Movies... Sample Video Clips page of www.papajohn.org might help
you think about it. The first part of your question might be easier than the
second. Maybe a setting like Video for broadband (340 Kbps) would be
adequate for getting them in for computer viewing.

But, going to DVD later and watching on TV. You might want to test the full
process to see if you are satisfied with the quality, before investing all
the upfront time to capture them.

PapaJohn

 

[Jose]

Try High Quality Video (NTSC) you might be surprised at the quality and
size. it uses variable bit rate so the quality might be better and the file
size smaller.

When you say burn to DVD do you mean so that it plays on a standalone
player? If you do, that requires MPEG-2 format for now. Polaroid announced a
WMV DVD player and Panasonic is a primary Microsoft DVD partner so that may
change. If you only need to play on Windows PCs then WMV is fine.

If you do need MPEG-2 then it is not a good idea to first go to WMV, you
might as well go straight to MPEG-2.
For this I products from ulead and soncifoundry are good

If you need to edit the videos first then you really should capture them as
AVI.

I just wrote a big note with other considerations see "Artifacts clean-up"
7/11/2003 3:21 and the notes that follow it.

Write back about your experiences. I'm not all decided on this either and I
like to hear what others are doing.

 

[whoever]

Polaroid announced a WMV DVD player

Is this the product you're talking about?

http://www.polaroidelectronics.com/pages/pressReleases/dvdPlayers/pr_dvd_1.asp

It doesn't sound like straightforward replacement for your $100 home DVD player.

 

[Jose]

I hope they are also working on something simpler than that. Without seeing
pictures it sounds complicated and expensive.

Is this the product you're talking about?

http://www.polaroidelectronics.com/pages/pressReleases/dvdPlayers/pr_dvd_1.asp

It doesn't sound like straightforward replacement for your $100 home DVD

player.