VHS to DV?

uhill · Post by **uhill** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 3:59 am

Is it possible to convert VHS to DV via connecting VCR to DV camcorder and at the same time capture from the DV camcorder to PC with the help of VS9 (without actually recording it to the tape in DV camcorder)?

rwernyei · Post by **rwernyei** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 4:27 am

Sure you can. Granted that your DV cam has an av/dv converter to allow for passthrough. What is your make and model? If you do not have any documentation, check camcorderinfo.com for a possible review or the manufacturers website and download the pdf manual file.

P.S. Do not try this with tape in cam or it will automatically shutdown due to cam's battery saving feature.

uhill · Post by **uhill** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 4:51 am

I have Canon Elura 50. It does have av/dv converter. Any issues I should be aware of with this form of conversion/transfer?

rwernyei · Post by **rwernyei** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 5:03 am

Make sure to enable it in your cam's menu settings. Other than that, you should have no problems capturing in DV through firewire. You can also use Ulead's DWS MPEG plugin to capture directly to MPEG, granted you have 2.4GHZ or higher and will not be doing any editing. Always edit in AVI but this works great for straight transfer from tape to DVD.

kebrinton · Post by **kebrinton** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 5:26 am

When you attach a normal VCR to your computer via your digital camcorder pass-through, the computer may think it's dealing with a digital videocamera and give you those desktop controls: play, fastback, fastforward, pause. But your VCR will not respond to them. You have to manage the VCR with your fingers (or remote). It's really no sweat: You start the VCR playing its tape, and you click on "Capture" in Video Studio.

Keith

THoff · Post by **THoff** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 7:48 pm

With some camcorders, you may need to remove the tape in order to enable the pass-through feature. Also, camcorders destined for the European market may have this feature disabled due to higher taxation on devices with this capability -- some people who have bought gray-market cameras have found this out the hard way.

erock1 · Post by **erock1** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 8:52 pm

I know it might seem trivial at this stage but since Uhill didn't say what OS was being used I thought I would add the following. If your OS is before Windows 2000, like 98 or ME you have a 4 GB file size limitation (Fat32). You just can't start your VCR, press capture and walk away. because of this 4 gig limit you have to monitor what you capture and stop before you hit the 4 gig limit. If your OS is 2000 or later (NTFS) there isn't this size limit.

Erock

THoff · Post by **THoff** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 8:58 pm

That's not entirely true. UVS will break up the capture into multiple segments of up to 4GB, so you can capture long programs / videos without having to babysit the process.

What you cannot do with FAT32 volumes (regardless of what OS you have) is output files larger than 4GB during the Share stage -- that applies to both "Create Video File" and "Create Disk".

erock1 · Post by **erock1** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 9:02 pm

THoff wrote:That's not entirely true. UVS will break up the capture into multiple segments of up to 4GB, so you can capture long programs / videos without having to babysit the process".

I don't know THoff, I use ME and from VS6 & VS8 I have not been able to capture more than 4 gb files. VS6 & 8 never broke up a long capture into seperate mutilple segments for me. Has this actually worked for you or are you talking theory?

THoff · Post by **THoff** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 9:30 pm

erock1 wrote:
THoff wrote:That's not entirely true. UVS will break up the capture into multiple segments of up to 4GB, so you can capture long programs / videos without having to babysit the process".
I don't know THoff, I use ME and from VS6 & VS8 I have not been able to capture more than 4 gb files. VS6 & 8 never broke up a long capture into seperate mutilple segments for me. Has this actually worked for you or are you talking theory?

Did you really mean "I have not been able to capture more than 4 gb files" as you wrote, or "I have not been able to capture more than 4 gb"? No, you won't be able to capture single files larger than 4GB with ME under any circumstances. But starting with UVS 5, it has had a feature called Seamless Capture that allows captures to exceed 4GB by breaking up the capture into multiple files, provided that a) you capture in the AVI format, and b) you use DirectShow, and not a Video For Windows capture driver.

I can't comment on how well this works with V6 or V8 under ME since I use V9 under XP, but I don't see a whole lot of complaints here saying it's not working.

Rivers · Post by **Rivers** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 11:37 pm

Uhill, I've been doing just this recently. I have a Canon 750i DV cam with an analogue to digital converter. VCR is plugged into cam via input/output switching scart, cam to pc via firewire. As others have said, remove the tape or that will play instead of the signal from the VCR. I then capture as I would from my own dv tapes and then edit and burn in VS 8.
You may find that your sound and picture get out of sync or that commercial tapes have a protection to stop you copying, the copy flashes light and dark.
The camera I have seems to iron out these problems.
Good luck

erock1 · Post by **erock1** » Tue Apr 19, 2005 1:48 pm

THoff wrote: Did you really mean "I have not been able to capture more than 4 gb files" as you wrote, or "I have not been able to capture more than 4 gb"?

No, you won't be able to capture single files larger than 4GB with ME under any circumstances.

But starting with UVS 5, it has had a feature called Seamless Capture that allows captures to exceed 4GB by breaking up the capture into multiple files, provided that a) you capture in the AVI format, and b) you use DirectShow, and not a Video For Windows capture driver.

I can't comment on how well this works with V6 or V8 under ME since I use V9 under XP, but I don't see a whole lot of complaints here saying it's not working.

Cute, very cute, THoff

Yes, using ME as the OS I have not been able to capture single or an individual file(s) that exceed the 4GB limit.
From your reply it also looks like you never actually have tested the "seamless capture" with any version of VS. If I had a penny for every component that Ulead said worked in VS I'd have a computer with XP as an OS

Perhaps the reason you don't "see a whole lot of complaints here saying it's not working" is because a whole lot of VS users are not dinosaurs like myself using pre-2000 OS

THoff · Post by **THoff** » Tue Apr 19, 2005 7:05 pm

I'm not trying to be cute, I'm trying to help you, and that's why I asked for clarification.

I have used UVS 5 and seamless capture, but that was many years ago, but I don't recall having problems with it. It should work given the restrictions I outlined in my previous post.

Another possible problem may arise from using antiquated codecs that use signed 32-bit integers for file addressing: they will be limited to 2GB files instead of 4GB files.

erock1 · Post by **erock1** » Tue Apr 19, 2005 7:11 pm

THoff wrote:I'm not trying to be cute, I'm trying to help you, and that's why I asked for clarification.

I have used UVS 5 and seamless capture, but that was many years ago, but I don't recall having problems with it. It should work given the restrictions I outlined in my previous post.

Another possible problem may arise from using antiquated codecs that use signed 32-bit integers for file addressing: they will be limited to 2GB files instead of 4GB files.

Thanks THoff, I know and I was just kidding, hence the smiley

I will try again to see what happens. The VS8 users manual indicates that VS8 automatically performs seamless capture on systems with a Fat32 OS. The manual states that upon installation, VS8 detects what OS you're running and captures accordingly. It continues to state that seamless capture will only work with DV-Type1 or DV-Type2.

Regards,
Erock