vhs and capturing questions

lakewud · Post by **lakewud** » Mon Nov 26, 2007 8:29 pm

Tis an old one im sure asked countless times, heres hoping that that i will succeed where others have failed and get a more than useful reply of sorts...

Transferring vhs tapes into VS (10PLUS), some of which are S-VHS-C no less...wanting the best quality i can get...so..how do i's go about getting it?

FWIW also planning on fliming off an old projector screen some cine film...any thoughts prey tell...plan to simply record and then capture..but if theres a more professional method please dont be shy in coming forward.

Finally, plan on capturing footage into VS, so normally i would simply capture, and then go into the edit mode to find the usual postage size clip on my editing board which i would rename perhaps and drag n drop to hearts content. Question, from the capture stage, how do i go about making sure all of what im capturing is contained in one file so when i comes to deleting the thing its gone and i wont find it cropping up in places such as media player etc...

Simply answers only please, step by step instructions else im lost.

cheers

Black Lab · Post by **Black Lab** » Mon Nov 26, 2007 8:51 pm

For your cine film see this related post: http://phpbb.ulead.com.tw/EN/viewtopic.php?t=8849

As for your VHS transfer you don't give us anything to go on. Obviously you need something to convert that analog signal to a digital one to get it into your pc. Do you have such a device? Do you have a digital camcorder that has a pass-thru function?

As far as deleting your clips, you can either do that thru Windows Explorer, or thru the VS library. To do so from the library you would right click on a clip, then press the Shift key as you choose Delete. This will not only delete the clip from the library (as only choosing Delete will do) but also will delete the file from your system.

See the Tutorial section for more info (link is in my signature).

skier-hughes · Post by **skier-hughes** » Mon Nov 26, 2007 10:08 pm

The cine, having a camcorder that can very it's capture frequency is a bonus, as you can set it to remove the flickering you get when capturing 18fps cine at 25/29.97 fps video.
Have a very plain white background, cine projector screen is often no good as it doesn't have a flat surface, so good quality A4 card is a nice choice.
Get projector and cam lenses as level as possible and as close to each other as you can.
Project a small image, 6"x4" is good.
Fit new bulb to projector.
Fit new belt to projector.
Really dark room

Otherwise have it done by wet telecine where they capture each frame individually, by far the best method.

VHS capture, canopus do some excellent analogue to digital convertors, multitude of connectors, time base correction to ensure audio/video stay in sync, connect by firewire so all apps recognise them.

PidTel · Post by **PidTel** » Mon Nov 26, 2007 11:04 pm

There are certainly more professional ways of converting film to video but they come with a professional price tag. There are companies that will do it for you but from what I hear the quality is somewhat variable.

I suggest you try the method described by sjj and see if you are satisfied with the results. Your two main problems are likely to be flare and flicker.

Telecine machines of the projector/camera type do not use a screen, the projector is pointed directly at the camera and the image is focussed with a suitable lens. I do NOT recommend that you try this as it could cause serious damage to the camera CCD. The screen will reflect light in various directions and will cause some general illumination of the surroundings. The effect is likely to be that what was black on the film comes out as grey in the video. Set everything up in a dark room and remove or cover anything which could reflect stray light.

The other problem is flicker. The television frame rate is 25fps or 29.97fps depending on whether you are in PAL or NTSC land. Your projector probably runs at about 18fps and has a multi-blade shutter. The difference between the TV frame rate and the rate at which the shutter opens and closes can give rise to flicker. If the projector speed can be varied, adjust it to minimize this effect.

The camera and projector should each be securely mounted onto something solid. If they are both mounted on the same thing and it isn't solid, the vibrations from the intermittent motion of the projector will be transferred to the camera. I would keep the projector and camera as close to the screen as mounting and focussing permit.

Tom

skier-hughes · Post by **skier-hughes** » Tue Nov 27, 2007 7:23 pm

Just in case

I wasn't suggesting home made telecine, but send it off to be done.

I've changed my small size from 62x4" to what I should have typed 6"x4"

Imagine a 62x4" sized video

PidTel · Post by **PidTel** » Tue Nov 27, 2007 8:56 pm

What would it cost, per hour of running time, to have it transferred frame by frame on a wet gate telecine?

Tom

skier-hughes · Post by **skier-hughes** » Tue Nov 27, 2007 10:14 pm

Contact these, recommended by a friend of mine.

http://www.videostation.co.uk/aboutus.asp

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 3:12 am

No one has mentioned your other question - VHS tapes.
For this I would suggest a TV Card - don't go for the cheapest but get one that is termed a PVR (Personal Video Recorder) or HVR (Hybrid Video Recorder). These have hardware MPEG encoders built in so the TV card will convert your video to MPEG2 on the fly rather than asking your computer to try and do it for you.

The added bonus is that when you have finished converting your VHS collection to DVD the TV card will remain useful. You will now be able to watch and record TV on your computer plus you will have teletext.

Bear in mind that many areas of the world are now in the process of going digital and the existing analogue aerial broadcasts are going to be turned off. Therefore get a TV card that works with the new digital TV broadcasts.

The TV card will come with its own capture software and normally you would use that to capture the video and then import the captured video into your Ulead Program of choice. Here is a guide for doing this with MovieFactory - VideoStudio is very similar.

MF4: Create DVD from Hauppauge TV Card

skier-hughes · Post by **skier-hughes** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 6:23 pm

skier-hughes wrote: VHS capture, canopus do some excellent analogue to digital convertors, multitude of connectors, time base correction to ensure audio/video stay in sync, connect by firewire so all apps recognise them.

Well only if you ignore my reply Steve