[Dixielandjazz] Video transfers for editing old VHS

[Dick Baker]

Dan Augustinen wrote:
"Nancy and DJML--
     Hmm.  Can't you just dub or copy the VHS tape to a DVD, and then read 
the DVD in your computer's CD/DVD player and copy the file to your 
hard-drive (i can do this on my Mac)?  Once it's on your hard-drive, seems 
like you could massage and edit it with iMovie or whatever.  I have a combo 
VHS/DVD recorder that allows me to dub a VHS tape to a DVD, but there are 
probably also electronics store that would do this for you.  I think the 
resulting file would be MUCH too large to fit on a CD, which can only hold 
700 MB, unless you're talking about a VHS piece that's only a couple of 
minutes long."

This method has worked well for me on my PC.  Video purists hold that the 
"right" way is to dub directly from VHS player to computer via a special 
interface card, but that's quite a bit of expense and hassle.  I use a 
Lite-On DVD/VHS unit to dub from VHS to DVD (using rewritable/reusable 
DVD-RW discs).  I then copy the resulting MPEG files from the DVD-RW disc 
into my PC, where I use an inexpensive program called MPEG-VCR (see 
http://www.womble.com/products/VCR.html) to edit the video into the pieces 
I want.  I then use Nero's DVD editor (NeroVision) to create menus and burn 
the final DVD-R disc.  I don't know anything about IMacs or iMovie, but 
there's a chance that it'll do more or less the same thing.


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       Dick Baker - Now in Chattanooga!
             box2 at twotonbaker.com