Recording VHS through Digital Camcorder Firewire

[Guest]

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I've heard that I can use my Canon ZR40 Digital Camcorder to hook my
older VHS camcorder up to and take advantage of my firewire connection
to convert old VHS home movies to DVD. Can anyone offer any pointers
on this?

thanks,

Chris

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop,rec.video,rec.photo.desktop (More info?)

"cover" wrote...
> I've heard that I can use my Canon ZR40 Digital Camcorder to hook my
> older VHS camcorder up to and take advantage of my firewire connection
> to convert old VHS home movies to DVD. Can anyone offer any pointers
> on this?

Some digital camcorders can be used as a "psss-through"
analog-to-digital converter. Assuming you already have
your system functioning for capture from tape in the
camcorder, you could try just taking the tape out, connecting
the VHS camcorder output to the Canon analog input, put
it in "camcorder mode" and see if you can get video through
to the computer.

 

[certifiable]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop,rec.video,rec.photo.desktop (More info?)

Check the Canon camcorder user manual. I have a Sony. The manual shows the
setup for connecting a VCR as input to the camcorder and then
camcorder out to the computer via Firewire. I had to access
the menu on my camcorder ( it was in the user manual ) to change
a setting to make this work. And of course you need the right cables
to get from the VHS camcorder to the Canon. But I suspect that's
going to be the same cables I use from the VCR to the Sony.
Good Luck

cover wrote:
> I've heard that I can use my Canon ZR40 Digital Camcorder to hook my
> older VHS camcorder up to and take advantage of my firewire connection
> to convert old VHS home movies to DVD. Can anyone offer any pointers
> on this?
>
> thanks,
>
> Chris

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop,rec.video,rec.photo.desktop (More info?)

On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 05:26:55 GMT, Certifiable <znospam@somenews.net>
wrote:

Do you guys think there would be an advantage to just purchasing a
video capture card to get the VHS to DVD versus going through the
pass-thru on the digital camcorder???

---------------
Check the Canon camcorder user manual. I have a Sony. The manual shows
the setup for connecting a VCR as input to the camcorder and then
camcorder out to the computer via Firewire. I had to access
the menu on my camcorder ( it was in the user manual ) to change
a setting to make this work. And of course you need the right cables
to get from the VHS camcorder to the Canon. But I suspect that's
going to be the same cables I use from the VCR to the Sony.
Good Luck

Some digital camcorders can be used as a "psss-through"
analog-to-digital converter. Assuming you already have
your system functioning for capture from tape in the
camcorder, you could try just taking the tape out, connecting
the VHS camcorder output to the Canon analog input, put
it in "camcorder mode" and see if you can get video through
to the computer.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop,rec.video,rec.photo.desktop (More info?)

"cover" wrote ...
> Do you guys think there would be an advantage to just purchasing a
> video capture card to get the VHS to DVD versus going through the
> pass-thru on the digital camcorder???

You haven't mentioned any conditions that would make it
advantageous. Of course if you have money to burn, go
for it and keep the economy going.

 

[rs]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

cover wrote:
> On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 05:26:55 GMT, Certifiable <znospam@somenews.net>
> wrote:
>
> Do you guys think there would be an advantage to just purchasing a
> video capture card to get the VHS to DVD versus going through the
> pass-thru on the digital camcorder???
>

If transfer of VHS to DVD with the very minumum of muss and fuss, and
your not picky about wanting detailed menus, give a DVD recorder with
build in VHS.

The pass through capture will capture your tapes in DV format, taking up
approx 13GB for each hour. Then you will need to render that into an
acceptable DV format. (An MPG2 file at appropriate size and bitrate to
fit onto your DVD.) Some programs will just let you feed that AVI DV
file into it and do the crunching, but many people prefer dedicated
rendering software as it will typically do a better and faster job and
give you more control. You will find a lot of preferences and opinions
on this list and probably trip across a few idea wars.

Your choices should be based on several factors. How much time and money
you want to put into it. How much editing and or control over the final
product you want and how much you are willing to spend to do that. And
what is the target audience for what you create.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop,rec.video (More info?)

I can't think of any advantages to an external box if you already have a
camera with that capability.

It my even be the same chip doing the A/D conversion - it just happens to be
surrounded by a camera.

C.


"cover" <coverland914 @ yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1111736580.c78bd0c378f7d8ccd694289c9670bc5a@teranews...
> On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 05:26:55 GMT, Certifiable <znospam@somenews.net>
> wrote:
>
> Do you guys think there would be an advantage to just purchasing a
> video capture card to get the VHS to DVD versus going through the
> pass-thru on the digital camcorder???
>
> ---------------
> Check the Canon camcorder user manual. I have a Sony. The manual shows
> the setup for connecting a VCR as input to the camcorder and then
> camcorder out to the computer via Firewire. I had to access
> the menu on my camcorder ( it was in the user manual ) to change
> a setting to make this work. And of course you need the right cables
> to get from the VHS camcorder to the Canon. But I suspect that's
> going to be the same cables I use from the VCR to the Sony.
> Good Luck
>
> Some digital camcorders can be used as a "psss-through"
> analog-to-digital converter. Assuming you already have
> your system functioning for capture from tape in the
> camcorder, you could try just taking the tape out, connecting
> the VHS camcorder output to the Canon analog input, put
> it in "camcorder mode" and see if you can get video through
> to the computer.
>

 

[Mr]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

On Thu, 24 Mar 2005 20:16:41 -0800, cover <coverland914 @ yahoo.com>
wrote:

>I've heard that I can use my Canon ZR40 Digital Camcorder to hook my
>older VHS camcorder up to and take advantage of my firewire connection
>to convert old VHS home movies to DVD. Can anyone offer any pointers
>on this?
>
>thanks,
>
>Chris

Like others have mentioned here, you should read your manual for the
exact setup, but be aware that your vhs will create a large file when
converted. That is the only item that has slowed me down from
converting all my family tapes over to digital to dvd. I am waiting
on the double layer dvd's/burners to come down in price and formats to
settle down some.
MR

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

In article <1111724202.56e2864a0f5a79051a22d3e6b46796dc@teranews>, cover
<coverland914 @ yahoo.com> says...
> I've heard that I can use my Canon ZR40 Digital Camcorder to hook my
> older VHS camcorder up to and take advantage of my firewire connection
> to convert old VHS home movies to DVD. Can anyone offer any pointers
> on this?
>
> thanks,
>
> Chris
>

--
I have been doing this for a few months now, putting a large collection
of VHS-C tapes from my old analog camcorder onto DVDs in my spare time.

Using my new Canon ZR-85 set for analog-digital passthrough, connected
the analog video output from the old camcorder to the analog input of
the digital camcorder. Connected the Firewire output of the digital
camcorder to the Firewire input of the computer. Fired up the capture
software on the computer (something from ArcSoft that came bundled with
my DVD writer, name escapes me at the moment), and pushed the Play
button on the analog camcorder. All there was to it.

The ArcSoft software was pretty much all I needed for basic home use.
Once you have captured the digital video, it will let you string clips
together, do some basic editing, fades, etc., add some basic menus to
your DVD, transcode to MPEG format, and write to a blank DVD. Fairly
simple, didn't need to mess with half a dozen different programs,
haven't made a coaster with it yet.

Just went to the ArcSoft website to look up the name of their software.
It's called ShowBiz, sells on their website for $99. The website
indicates that there is a trial version of ShowBiz available for
download - don't know if it's full-function limited-time, or cripple-
ware. Like I said, my version was free, came bundled with my DVD
writer. For the home-movie kind of stuff that I am doing, I haven't
felt the need for anything with more features.

Oh, make sure you have plenty of free disk space for the captured video
files. I haven't been at this for a little while, but I seem to recall
that the captured .AVI video runs about 5 minutes per gigabyte - I'm
sure somebody will jump in and supply the right number if my memory is
faulty. Also, be prepared for a bit of a wait during the transcoding
step - a fairly recent, speedy CPU helps out here.

All in all, using the ShowBiz software, I found the learning curve to be
fairly short and easy. Can't speak to any of the other capture/edit
software out there, ShowBiz is the only one I have tried.

Hope this helps.

--

Jerry Maple
General Dynamics C4 Systems
Scottsdale, AZ
--

 

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On Thu, 24 Mar 2005 20:16:41 -0800, cover <coverland914 @ yahoo.com>
wrote:

Appreciate everyone's input on this subject - thanks very much... I
have captured a couple of movies hooking my digital camcorder to my
firewire port and it worked great EXCEPT, I noticed on the second and
longer movie (that I tried to capture), that it resulted in several
smaller image files (each one being a short movie). I'm curious - why
is that - since I never set this up in any program 'setup'??? I have
a barely loaded 160g HDD so it isn't for a lack of hard drive real
estate that it would do this so...

To capture the movies, I tried two different programs. One being
"Microsoft Windows Movie Maker" (the one that seemed to work the best
that came free with my XPpro machine, and the second being a program
that I purchased just for this task, "Simple Movie Maker 2.0". The
Simple Movie Maker 2.0 seemed to work okay - other than the audio not
lining up with the video. The Microsoft Windows Movie Maker however,
clearly worked flawlesslessly EXCEPT for the multiple graphical files,
or movie files that showed up on my HDD when transfering the home
movie.

So the question... Is there a means in Microsoft Windows Movie Maker
to edit all of those short little blasts of movies into a single movie
prior to burning onto a DVD? Other than the multiple little movies,
it seemed to work flawlessley and my first bout transferring a movie
of approximately 30 minutes, went without a hitch until I got into the
1.5 hour movie.

thanks gang - appreciate hearing your thoughts on this...

Chris

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop,rec.video,rec.photo.desktop (More info?)

"cover" wrote ...
> Appreciate everyone's input on this subject - thanks very much... I
> have captured a couple of movies hooking my digital camcorder to my
> firewire port and it worked great EXCEPT, I noticed on the second and
> longer movie (that I tried to capture), that it resulted in several
> smaller image files (each one being a short movie). I'm curious - why
> is that - since I never set this up in any program 'setup'??? I have
> a barely loaded 160g HDD so it isn't for a lack of hard drive real
> estate that it would do this so...

In many conditions, there may be a 2GB file-size limit. In those
cases, the software will write a sequence of 2GB files, however
many it takes.

 

[Guest]

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In article <114ip0a7td2vb71@corp.supernews.com>, rcrowley7@xprt.net
says...
> "cover" wrote ...
> > Appreciate everyone's input on this subject - thanks very much... I
> > have captured a couple of movies hooking my digital camcorder to my
> > firewire port and it worked great EXCEPT, I noticed on the second and
> > longer movie (that I tried to capture), that it resulted in several
> > smaller image files (each one being a short movie). I'm curious - why
> > is that - since I never set this up in any program 'setup'??? I have
> > a barely loaded 160g HDD so it isn't for a lack of hard drive real
> > estate that it would do this so...
>
> In many conditions, there may be a 2GB file-size limit. In those
> cases, the software will write a sequence of 2GB files, however
> many it takes.
>
>

--
I believe that some capture software can also be configured to
automatically detect scenes, and split the captured video into separate
clips automatically.
--

Jerry Maple
General Dynamics C4 Systems
Scottsdale, AZ
--

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video,rec.video.desktop (More info?)

On 3/29/2005, Jerry Maple managed to type:
> In article <114ip0a7td2vb71@corp.supernews.com>, rcrowley7@xprt.net
> says...
>> "cover" wrote ...
>>> Appreciate everyone's input on this subject - thanks very much... I
>>> have captured a couple of movies hooking my digital camcorder to my
>>> firewire port and it worked great EXCEPT, I noticed on the second and
>>> longer movie (that I tried to capture), that it resulted in several
>>> smaller image files (each one being a short movie). I'm curious - why
>>> is that - since I never set this up in any program 'setup'??? I have
>>> a barely loaded 160g HDD so it isn't for a lack of hard drive real
>>> estate that it would do this so...
>>
>> In many conditions, there may be a 2GB file-size limit. In those
>> cases, the software will write a sequence of 2GB files, however
>> many it takes.
>>
>>
>
> --
> I believe that some capture software can also be configured to
> automatically detect scenes, and split the captured video into separate
> clips automatically.
> --
>
> Jerry Maple
> General Dynamics C4 Systems
> Scottsdale, AZ

And in any case the resulting DVD should be seamless regardless of how
many or how few clips there are, without any effort on the user's part.

The authoring S/W and player F/W take care of that behind the scenes
(pun alert).

Gino

--
Gene E. Bloch (Gino)
letters617blochg3251
(replace the numbers by "at" and "dotcom")