Want to burn VCDs from VHS tapes

[F117NightHawk]

I have a bunch of movies on VHS that aren't available on DVD. I'd like to put them over to VCD. I have all the necessary equipment, but am not sure how to begin. I'm using an ATI Radeon VIVO card. The video capture program seems to only give me the option to save any video I capture as MP2 (which I've read is actually an audio format). On their website it says I can save in any standard video format, but I have yet to find out how.

Does anyone else with an ATI Radeon card know how I can set their capture program to save my videos as AVI files or MPEG2 files (which are NOT the same as MP2)? Also which format is necessary to make a VCD?

 

[sohcrates]

check out vcdhelp.com

 

[NicColt]

with the Radeon the MPEG 1 and 2 codecs are installed when you install the ATI - DVD portion of it. Long story short... MPEG 2 is a proprietary codec.

Once you get your MPEG in and working and if your tapes have microvision you will need the microvision buster for ATI. You can get that over at Doom9.org or let me know if you can't find it and I'll email it to you.

VCD is MPEG1 and SVCD is MPEG2 I would recommend VCD and I think MMC has a predef setting for VCD once you record it with those setting just use something like Nero to burn a VCD.

 

[Pabster]

Record to MPEG-1 (VideoCD). There's no point in recording to MPEG-2 when the source is a VHS tape. Just a waste of disk space.

 

[F117NightHawk]

Wow! I just experimented with it a little and it now allows me to save in the MPG format, which is the one I want. I chose MPEG 1 Low Resolution for the format. Is that a good one for VHS to VCD? OK that's one thing out of the way. Now I need to hook my VCR up to my video in on the video card and to the input jacks on my computer's front for sound. Then I can do video capture to the MPG format. And that in turn can just be dragged and dropped onto a CDR in Nero and that would make it a VCD right.

I have an SCC Sema color corrector to defeat Macrovision. Would that do the trick? Also how big would say an hour and a half to 2 hour movie be on my computer? I have about 26 gigs free on my hard drive.

Edit: Also I have the ATI software that I installed from the website in April. There's a newer version available. The current stuff seems to work OK. Am I alright using what I have now, or is it imperative that I download the very latest version? TIA.

 

[rudder]

If you recorded VHS to a VCD, then used a brand new tape to record back from the VCD, would you lose a lot of quality?

Bakc when I had a vhs camera I made a lot of videos of the kids I would like to preserve on something sturdier than a vhs tape.

Also I don't have a vivo card, what a good capture card that can do mpeg1 or 2?

 

[NicColt]

you need to expirement to find your own preference. but 1.14 /mbsec of MPEG1 will give you about 655megs and 1hr of recording.

 

[F117NightHawk]

Is 256 MB RAM enough for this? I have Win98 SE and 1.4 gig Tbird.