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I transfered some of my old VHS home movies to DVD. I'd like to edit and piece together using VS 11.5 I usually get pretty bad quality when converting to avi.....what is the best way to go about this? Of course I'll need to transfer back to DVD, but I'd like to perserve as much quality as possible. DVD file won't open with VS as is (by simply ripping to PC) and I think I might have Xvid on my PC (gotta look for it)

First you're not going to improve the quality. What you have on your DVD is the best quality that you're going to get. Have you heard the saying.."You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear..."

So to prevent any further degradation, you should stick with the format of the DVD, which is MPEG-2. Converting it to any form of "avi" (which is a container, that can have over a hundred different file types), is not going improve anything. The video files will just have to be recoded back to DVD compatible MPEG-2. The "avi" files are going to be much larger than the MPEG-2, unless you're wanting to use Xvid, which I don't recommend. Xvid is more compressed than the MPEG-2, and is very difficult for VS to handle.

Now are you wanting to just archive them on a Data disc? These are different than a Video DVD. You could use Xvid to archive them, but you would not be able to play them on any stand-alone DVD player. Again the quality is not going to any better than what you started with. So VHS is the best quality you're going to get, which is less than that of digital video (DV) recorded on a Digital camcorder.

If you have copied the DVD to your PC, you should have a folder called VIDEO_TS. There are several files in that folder, some should have the extension VOB. These are actually MPEG-2 video files, and are the ones that are imported into VS. Now there are a couple of ways to get them into VS.

1. From your hard drive on your PC... In VS, use the command Insert Video>DVD/DVD-VR. Since you don't have a disc in the drive, there is a button, Import from Folders, press it, and navigate to where the VIDEO_TS folder is located on your system. Click on that folder to select it, and click open. VS should now parse this folder for those VOB files, and strip away the extra overhead data, ie; grab the MPEG-2 files. You should now see a panel on the left, with both Title and Chapter (if there are any chapters on the DVD). Place a check in the box beside each Title that you want to import, and VS will insert those files into the Timeline.

2. The above can be done with the DVD in the DVD tray.

3. In the VIDEO_TS folder on your hard drive, locate those files with the extension VOB, and change the extension to MPEG. Example: video-1.vob would be video-1.mpg (or mpeg). Now in VS just use the Insert Video, and go to to those newly renamed files to insert them...

thanks for the advice; I do have a program that converts to MPEG 2. Wanting to send some video to friends that don't have a VCR (home movies are on VHS, recorded to DVD, ripped to PC). I know I could never improve on quality but I was hoping to lose as little as possible in this whole process.

I do have a program that converts to MPEG 2.

Yes you do. It's called VideoStudio.