DJGold

Cap · Joined: October 20th, 2004 Posts: 62 Location: Rexford, NY

If you have made such an endeavor (converting VHS tapes to vob/mpg files) I would appreciate being able to tap into your brain.

The collection now boats about 150 ETV/VideoLinks VHS tapes, each tape having 13 music videos dating from 1989 through 1997.

Currently, I own two USB 2.0 video-to-computer extraction modules (Plextor an Kenivision), plus their proprietary software programs. I also have AVS Media Video Media Suite, Nero 7 Ultra, TMPG Express 4, and SONY Vegas 7.0e.

These VHS tracks need to get into my computer at the highest resolution possible. Because of these sources being VHS tapes, the ultimate program should be one that does a very good job at auto-chaptering each song into it's own whatever file so there's less need to be spending hours cutting and saving. Closing, importing. Cut and saving. Repeat 13 times.

Any help or advice would be most gratefully appreciated.

CJ Greiner · Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 9:27 pm Post subject:

Ooooh.... I don't envy the task ahead of you.
I have a collection of ETV DVDs and MPEG2 from Doug Howard.... but I never got any of the tapes.

You may run into a time/quality issue and decide to go with new DVDs that have many of the songs you want.

JonesTM carries Video DVDs and MPEG2 discs produced by ScreenPlay... that's where Doug Howard moved to!
You might want to check out the VideoClassic series:
http://www.jonestm.com/viddisc-retro.asp

Be sure to click on the "classic DVD sale" link on the right side of the page -- it's what I did, and got a lot of stuff that's actually useful.

Cap · Joined: October 20th, 2004 Posts: 62 Location: Rexford, NY

CJ : Thanks for the advice. I have every TM Century and Promo Only and Top Hits USA retro dvd, as well as quite a number of EVI classics.

These VHS tapes have stuff NOBODY has. Here's the covers of three. Read 'em and weep!

This is just the first three, well over a hundred Hot Hits and Pop Country tapes to even look at.

Because they are old and getting brittle and me not knowing how or where they were originally stored and what possible negative electronic influences they were subjected to, I figure I have one real solid shot at getting each tape dubbed to digital.

That's why all these questions about gear. I feel much like a musical archeologist who has just stumbled on the Lost Ark of the Juke Box.

EDIT NOTE: Wow. That yellow looks fabulous against this forum's blue backdrop!!!!

CJ Greiner · Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2008 5:53 pm Post subject:

Those are some really good videos.

I guess you'd have to figure out which of those songs you'd really use for a party, and see if you can get them in a DVD collection.

If you can't... well, I guess it might be worth making the effort to get them transferred to DVD.

There are companies that will do it... but it might be costly to get them to do it, and they might have questions about copyright.

Hopefully someone else here can give you more info on programs you can use to do it yourself...

len · Joined: July 2nd, 2005 Posts: 105

Have you considered hiring a company to do it? Don't know if that's legal, but I'll bet given the quantity you have they would give you a break on the price.

Cap · Joined: October 20th, 2004 Posts: 62 Location: Rexford, NY

Yes, it's been considered. Now that I've done several tapes via the USB-direct-to-computer method, outside sourcing is being considered even more strongly.

I've order a Panasonic VHS/DVD dubbing unit and will try that method first. If it's still a huge painus tukkus, and I can't find the actual factory released DVDs [which allegedly exist], I will probably go the let somebody else do it for money route.