Digital 8 to DVD

I have a bunch of digital 8 tapes that I'd like to burn to DVD. What would
be the preferred method for getting this done? Would you create a file on a
pc and burn it from there or would I have better luck purchasing DVD
recorder and playing back through the TV and capturing it that way? I'm
looking for good quality, ease of use and as fast as I can get it done.

Any help would be appreciated.

Bryan

Bryan Berguson

In article <>,
"Bryan Berguson" <> writes:
> I have a bunch of digital 8 tapes that I'd like to burn to DVD. What would
> be the preferred method for getting this done? Would you create a file on a
> pc and burn it from there or would I have better luck purchasing DVD
> recorder and playing back through the TV and capturing it that way? I'm
> looking for good quality, ease of use and as fast as I can get it done.
>
> Any help would be appreciated.
>
> Bryan

The simplest method is to get a DVD recorder with a digital input for
Digital-8 and miniDV camcorders like my Toshiba. I also suggest you
get one with a hard disk as it is much easier to edit before making
the DVD.

David E. Bath

"Bryan Berguson" <> wrote...
> I have a bunch of digital 8 tapes that I'd like to burn to DVD. What would
> be the preferred method for getting this done? Would you create a file on a
> pc and burn it from there

No. You would capture in either the AVI or HuffYuv codec, then encode
to MPEG-2. I've seen the results of on-the-fly MPEG-2 encoding direct
from the capture, but I was unimpressed by all of the motion
artifacts.

> or would I have better luck purchasing DVD
> recorder and playing back through the TV and capturing it that way?

That's certainly the easiest way. The DVD recorder will make its own
menu, which is very basic but functional, and you have your final
product. You have choices of a variety of constant bitrates, where
you can fit anywhere from 1 hour to 6 hours (I think that this is the
upper limit) on a single DVDR.

> I'm looking for good quality, ease of use and as fast as I can get it done.

Good quality -- encode to MPEG-2 from a PC capture using variable
bitrate. Depending upon your experience, this can be a slow process,
because you will also have to author the DVD with an authoring
program.

Ease of use -- the set top DVD recorder. Plug it in and record. Very
fast process. Quality is actually pretty good for a 2-hour or less
recording onto a DVDR.

> Any help would be appreciated.

Go to:

http://www.videohelp.com

After you have mastered that site, then go to:

http://www.doom9.org

HTH,

-Junior

unclejr

On 6 Oct 2004 17:47:55 -0700, (unclejr) wrote:

>"Bryan Berguson" <> wrote...
>> I have a bunch of digital 8 tapes that I'd like to burn to DVD.
....
>> or would I have better luck purchasing DVD
>> recorder
....
>.... You have choices of a variety of constant bitrates

Most (at least meny) recorders use varible bit rate (VBR), aiming to
fit the selected recording time.

> where
>you can fit anywhere from 1 hour to 6 hours (I think that this is the
>upper limit) on a single DVDR.

Some can even store in worse quality up to 8 hours... Bryan doesn't
want that anyway. I would stay at 2 hours.

>> I'm looking for good quality, ease of use and as fast as I can get it done.

Then, go for a recorder with a suitable input for your camera
(S-video, or digital?).

To make some editing possible, either choose a DVD+RW recorder without
a HDD, or a DVD-R with a HDD.
Both gives the possibility to trim the recordings (start, end,
hide/remove some parts etc.)

With the "-R" system you need the HDD to do the editing.
With the "+RW" system you need to use +RW discs to have the DVD:s play
according to the edits on another DVD player.
Also check the editing features on the model you consider as it
varies.

/Jan

Jan B

>
> The simplest method is to get a DVD recorder with a digital input for
> Digital-8 and miniDV camcorders like my Toshiba. I also suggest you
> get one with a hard disk as it is much easier to edit before making
> the DVD.

David,

I wondered about this after I posted my first message. Just bypass the TV
completely by going from the camera into the recorder. I'm going to check
into this further. What model Toshiba do you have?

Thanks to all for you suggestions. Bypassing the computer is what I was
hoping to do so hopefully that works.

Bryan

Bryan Berguson

Jan B wrote:

> On 6 Oct 2004 17:47:55 -0700, (unclejr) wrote:
>
>
>>"Bryan Berguson" <> wrote...
>>
>>>I have a bunch of digital 8 tapes that I'd like to burn to DVD.
>
> ...
>
>>>or would I have better luck purchasing DVD
>>>recorder
>
> ...
>
>>.... You have choices of a variety of constant bitrates
>
>
> Most (at least meny) recorders use varible bit rate (VBR), aiming to
> fit the selected recording time.
>
>
>>where
>>you can fit anywhere from 1 hour to 6 hours (I think that this is the
>>upper limit) on a single DVDR.
>
>
> Some can even store in worse quality up to 8 hours... Bryan doesn't
> want that anyway. I would stay at 2 hours.
>
>
>>>I'm looking for good quality, ease of use and as fast as I can get it done.
>
>
> Then, go for a recorder with a suitable input for your camera
> (S-video, or digital?).
>
> To make some editing possible, either choose a DVD+RW recorder without
> a HDD, or a DVD-R with a HDD.
> Both gives the possibility to trim the recordings (start, end,
> hide/remove some parts etc.)
>
> With the "-R" system you need the HDD to do the editing.
> With the "+RW" system you need to use +RW discs to have the DVD:s play
> according to the edits on another DVD player.
> Also check the editing features on the model you consider as it
> varies.
>
> /Jan
but they are using a single pass manual variable bit rate setting which
is in no way nearly as good as two pass variable bit rate encoding via
the likes of TMPGenc.

but capture, encode, author is a damn site more fiddly.

Vincent Formosa

In article <>,
"Bryan Berguson" <> writes:
>
>
>>
>> The simplest method is to get a DVD recorder with a digital input for
>> Digital-8 and miniDV camcorders like my Toshiba. I also suggest you
>> get one with a hard disk as it is much easier to edit before making
>> the DVD.
>
> David,
>
> I wondered about this after I posted my first message. Just bypass the TV
> completely by going from the camera into the recorder. I'm going to check
> into this further. What model Toshiba do you have?

It's an RD XS32. Other manufacturers make similar models with the
digital interfaces too. At the time I was shopping it was the least
expensive one that had the digital and the hard disk.

> Thanks to all for you suggestions. Bypassing the computer is what I was
> hoping to do so hopefully that works.

It works very well, I've copy about 25 tapes so far and made multiple
DVDs from each so far. Most have been family and vacation videos.

David E. Bath

Use analogue copying Involing the PC will make you spend alot of time
trying to figure things out

"Bryan Berguson" <> wrote in message
news:...
> I have a bunch of digital 8 tapes that I'd like to burn to DVD. What
would
> be the preferred method for getting this done? Would you create a file on
a
> pc and burn it from there or would I have better luck purchasing DVD
> recorder and playing back through the TV and capturing it that way? I'm
> looking for good quality, ease of use and as fast as I can get it done.
>
> Any help would be appreciated.
>
> Bryan
>
>

Lars

"Lars" <> wrote in message news:<FDfbd.2173$>...
> Use analogue copying Involing the PC will make you spend alot of time
> trying to figure things out
>
I can't imagine why you would suggest going analog.

I am researching my first DVR for three purposes:

1. Copying family VHS tapes (4 to 20 years old) to DVD.
2. Copying family Digital8 tapes (new to 4 years old) to DVD.
3. Recording TV programs from analog cable.

Given the above, I am restricting my options to boxes with
both firewire (for dubbing the Digital and time base
correction (for best recovering the signals from the old VHS).
I was hoping to stay in the ball park of $400. It
seems I can satisfy all my criteria but one, with which one
depending on my choice of model. Here are units I am
considering:

1. The JVC MV1S combination DVD burner and VHS deck. Firewire,
TBC, good MPEG encoding, no hard drive, under $400.
2. The Panasonic E100 or E95. No VCR, but has firewire, TBC,
and a 120 Gb hard drive. $650.
3. The JVC MV30U, DVD burner, VCR, 160Gb HD, $768.

I have ruled out Toshiba because of the reported black level
problems. (I am in the US. These don't exist everywhere.)

I ruled out Pioneer because of reports that they do a poor
job recording poor quality VHS output.

Rick

Rick Matthews

"Rick Matthews" <> wrote in message
news: om...
> "Lars" <> wrote in message
news:<FDfbd.2173$>...
> > Use analogue copying Involing the PC will make you spend alot of time
> > trying to figure things out
> >
> I can't imagine why you would suggest going analog.
>
> I am researching my first DVR for three purposes:
>
> 1. Copying family VHS tapes (4 to 20 years old) to DVD.
> 2. Copying family Digital8 tapes (new to 4 years old) to DVD.
> 3. Recording TV programs from analog cable.
>
> Given the above, I am restricting my options to boxes with
> both firewire (for dubbing the Digital and time base
> correction (for best recovering the signals from the old VHS).
> I was hoping to stay in the ball park of $400. It
> seems I can satisfy all my criteria but one, with which one
> depending on my choice of model. Here are units I am
> considering:
>
> 1. The JVC MV1S combination DVD burner and VHS deck. Firewire,
> TBC, good MPEG encoding, no hard drive, under $400.
> 2. The Panasonic E100 or E95. No VCR, but has firewire, TBC,
> and a 120 Gb hard drive. $650.
> 3. The JVC MV30U, DVD burner, VCR, 160Gb HD, $768.
>
> I have ruled out Toshiba because of the reported black level
> problems. (I am in the US. These don't exist everywhere.)
>
> I ruled out Pioneer because of reports that they do a poor
> job recording poor quality VHS output.
>
> Rick

Any device that converts analog video to digital video does a TBC function,
the differences in performance is how good a job they do at deriving sync
information from the analog video signal. Analog video tape recordings
suffer from drop-outs and sync compression and when they have been copied
several times these problems are magnified greatly.

Unfortunately few product reviews even know about these problems, so your
best bet is to get a poor quality VHS tape and see if you can try it with
different brands of DVD recorders to find out which ones have the better TBC
functions.

I use a Sony DV encoder and sometimes use an external TBC to fix really bad
tapes that the Sony will not handle well. I then use my computer to clean
up the video signal before I encode it into mpeg2 for DVD authoring. I have
run tests using the same high quality video capture to make a DVD disk in my
computer with software and also make a DVD using a friends Philips DVD
recorder, I was trying to confirm whether a real time one pass hardware mpeg
encoder was as good as a multiple pass software encoder. The answer was the
hardware encoder in the Philips DVD recorder was OK, but not nearly as good
as the software method, but it took me about 1 year to learn how to do the
best DVD encoding from analog video sources, and the stand alone DVD
recorders are definitely easier and faster to use.

Mike T

Mike T