Copying home movies to DVD

[dclark]

I was using ulead SE7 to burn my HI8 tapes to DVD. I had a rough go at it to start but did finally get them to work even in my older DVD player on my main TV. Now I have been away from it for 6 or 8 monthes and have to go through the learning curve again. Only now I see DVD recorders and have been coming down in price.

What are going to be my best options? Maybe most painless options? Can I simply record my VHS and HI8 tapes using a DVD recorder, then edit them in software such as Ulead or Neo? If I go back to using the Suite 7 ulead what again is the best way to render it to have the best end product?

Can anyone tell me so pros and cons?

I am working with a pentiun4 processor, 320G hard drive, 512K frontside Ram.

[sjj1805]

Yes DVD recorders are indeed coming down in price I saw a couple at Asda Supermarket this week for less than £70 and so I anticipate a lot more people will be submitting questions of this nature to the User forum.

If you use a DVD recorder to capture your video the captured video will be in a DVD VR format. It is similar to a 'normal' DVD and you would import the DVD into VideoStudio as shown in this link:
Importing DVD files

Those imported files will be in MPEG2 format. You have to take more care when dealing with the MPEG2 format to avoid possible loss of quality and possible audio/video synchronisation issues. You would be advised to keep editing to a minimum and avoid transitions - sticking to straight cuts.
My experience is that when an audio/video synch issue occurs it is where a transition has been inserted.

You are advised to read the following links:
From Camcorder to DVD with VideoStudio
VideoStudio RECOMMENDED PROCEDURE by JC Hunter
Explanation of -VR and +VR Video Formats
Audio / Video synchronization issues

[dclark]

So would you recommend not using the DVD recorder? The though that came to mind when I started seeing these is that it could save alot of time as far as the capture and rendering process goes.

The other issue I have is currently have is I am still working with Studio 7SE. I have not found this software to be the easiest to use. It seems to be very picky when it comes to making the final product quality exceptible.

I do have some newer software from another company that seems easier to use but does not have near the options I have with Ulead. Also I can't get my end product to play on my older DVD player either.

[heinz-oz]

... must have been smoking the wrong teabag when I posted this, sorry.

[Trickytree]

I've just bought a panasonic vhs / dvd recorder and was advised by the panasonic helpdesk to have a look at ulead.com.

I found some help on the user forum, and have follwed the steps shown on one of the forum papes.

I downloaded the trial version of videostudio 10 and got as far as importing the dvd-folder and viewing the video on the dvd-r disk - but i cannot save anything - the "import" and "stop import" buttons are saded out.

Is the trial version "lite", and will the full version me to go any further? If so, then the trial version seems not to be not that helpful?

I want to be but feel a bit