Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

kingskel · Jun 28, 2002, 10:00 AM

Hi all:

Probably been asked a million times, but does anyone have any quick tips/links for a Mac-specific transfer of VHS tapes to digital format?

I have 10 or so 2-hour VHS tapes that I wouldn't mind making MPEGS of. Hardware: Beige G3, 500MHZ, 576 RAM, 40 Gig HD, PCI Radeon, PCI Formac Pro TV card, VCR hooked up to Formac card (I also have access to a digital video camera at work that takes Digital 8 tapes).

Software: Do I just play the videos through BTV and save as movs and then transfer the format later? Compression: Any ideas regarding MPEG compression and what levels/codecs I should use?

What would you guys do in this case?

Any info appreciated...

Thanks!

memento · Jun 28, 2002, 01:29 PM

I would save them first in the best quality possible (uncompressed, even). After that I would use quicktime6 preview to save them as .mp4 files. You'll have to experiment with datarates to see what you're happy with. I've generally found that mpeg4 will give me better quality at the same datarate as mpeg1 or same quality but with a lower datarate.

kingskel · Jun 28, 2002, 02:57 PM

Sounds good - thanks for the info.

However, which software/method do you reccomend for the actual transfer of analog to digital? Should I play the tape in my VCR and use BTV Pro to save it as a movie, or run the VCR to the Sony videocam, then save that tape as a movie? Do I have to save it all as raw footage taking up a lot of space, or is there a way to directly save it as MPEG? So MPEG4 is best - better than 1 + 2? Sorry for all the questions...

badtz · Jul 9, 2002, 05:20 AM

Are you planning on making the CDs [with the video in digital] playable? vcd/dvd?

or using the disks just for storage?

storage = mpeg4 or mpeg2

playable on dvd player = mpeg1 [vcd] or mpeg2 [dvd]

jcarr · Jul 9, 2002, 09:46 AM

You best bet would be to digitize the analog VHS by recording from the VCR to the Digital8 HandiCam. From there you can bring the DV format files over to your computer and then export them to MPEG-4 using iMovie, QuickTime Pro, etc.

Jul 10, 2002, 03:37 AM

There's a product coming up at MWNY called EyeTV. It's like Tivo for recording TV shows, but it's a USB box that also has a composite video input and captures straight to MPEG-1. July 17th

memento · Jul 10, 2002, 11:14 AM

I would avoid USB video devices. USB does not have the bandwidth required for GOOD video quality. USB 2.0 may be different, I don't know.

For software, I'd use iMovie if you can. It just works. But anything that saves it to your HD uncompressed shound work.

Red Wolf · Jul 11, 2002, 11:19 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by memento:
I would avoid USB video devices. USB does not have the bandwidth required for GOOD video quality. USB 2.0 may be different, I don't know.<hr /></blockquote>USB 2.0 runs at a faster transfer rate that FireWire, actually (around 450MB/s vs FireWire at 400MB/s). However since FireWire is Apple's child and USB 2.0 is direct competetion then you'll never see USB 2.0 support on a Mac. That's why you need to be careful when at a general computer store since a lot of devices are USB 2.0 (but are simply labeled as USB), are cheaper than FireWire, and work great according to the employees...if you have a PC with USB 2.0 card =P

Don't worry, FireWire 2 will be out sometime in the fall and will run at 800MB/s (take that Intel).