can I convert VHS or digital 8mm camcorder tapes to video cds?

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I recently purchased a Sony DVD/CD/VCD player. Is it possible to get home videos taken on a digital camcorder or VHS tapes transferred onto a video cd. If so, are there businesses that would do this for me. If this can be done, what would an estimate of the cost be.

I would appreciate any info you could offer me.

Thank you,

Aaron Holly

-- Aaron Holly (aholly2407@aol.com), October 14, 2000

Answers

yes it's possible to create vcds from digital/analog camcorder and VHS tapes. the thing is, most sony models don't play home brewed vcds. check your model here: www.vcdhelper.com

-- romeo (rrjuan@hotmail.com), October 15, 2000.

Cost of doing this yourself depends. Now first of all you need to find out if your DVD player can read CD-R/CD-RW. Some play only CD-R media, some play only CD-RW, some play both. It all depends on what model DVD player you have. If your computer has TV out, that's a good alternative if your DVD player doesn't read CD-R or CD-RW.

Now as far as hardware is concerned, you first need a CD-R/CD-RW burner (get one that burns CD-R and CD-RW). A good one should cost $150-$199 (it depends on if you get SCSI or IDE). You wanna go for something reliable like a Plextor or Yamaha. If you already have a CD burner, then you just overcame that obstacle.

Now the second thing you need (and this is the most important part) is video capture hardware. There has been an ongoing debate on which one provides the best quality that is most cost effective. The lower end parralel port (MP-10, Adaptec VideOH!, Video Sphinx, Dazzle DVC, etc)MPEG-1 capturing devices cost around $199 new and give sub VHS quality (my opinion being that I used to own 2 of those devices I just mentioned). Also, sometimes after long captures, video/audio can be out of sync. Internal PCI devices like Snazzi, Broadway, MPEGator, and Optibase are higher end cards costing much more but provide much better quality.

You must understand the golden rule of VCD making "garbage in, garbage out" meaning if you give the encoder bad quality video, you are going to get bad results.

The last thing you need for home VCD creation is VCD authoring software. Adaptec Easy CD creator and Nero are the cheapest while pro VCD creation software like VideoPak and Enreach I-author cost over $1000.

I dont know of any services for converting VHS to VCD but I have seen some before and they typically charge around $30 per tape. If you have a huge tape collection to convert to VCD, such a service is not cost effective.

I hope I have helped some.

-- MrVCD (mrvcd@juno.com), October 15, 2000.


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