Video tape conversion from many formats and regions to DVD
Question:
I came across your webpage today while net surfing. I am looking to buy a device to convert my numerous VHS tapes to DVDs but am confused.
The VHS tapes have various formats ( PAL, SECAM, NTSC 4.43 ad NTSC 3.38) used in different parts of the world. To play them back, I had to use multi-system VCR’s and multi-system TV’s. I shot with video cameras in Asia (PAL system) and USA (NTSC system).
Also, I have both VHS-C small tapes and large ones as well as 8 MM digotal tapes for my US camera. Do DVD’s too come in similar formats?
Can the same device be used to convert all types to DVD’s?
Answer:
You pose an interesting question – you’ve got an incredibly wide range of video formats. More than I’ve ever seen myself.
Let me address your specific questions:
>Do DVD’s too come in similar formats ?
Yes. There are two things you need to be aware of when doing DVD conversions: Screen resolution and region coding:
Screen resolution:
This is similar to the formats you bring up below – depending on the type of DVD player you’re playing it on (like American versus European), a DVD can be encoded for particular resolution: NTSC or PAL. And unless you get special equipment, you can NOT play a NTSC disk in a PAL device. However, that special equipment does exist. There are converter boxes that can take, for example, a PAL signal and encode it to NTSC. Here’s an example of a NTSC to PAL converter box.
Region coding:
Commercial DVDs are almost always tagged with a “region code“. A region code is a method used to prevent people in one location from watching that DVD in another location. A DVD in a Japanese player (region code ‘2′) will not work on an American player (region code ‘1’). A solution: get a lot of DVD players with different region codes. Or, the cheaper solution, get a DVD player with a region code of ‘0’, allowing it to play any disk. More information on region codes here.
>Can the same device be used to convert all types to DVD’s ?
Yes. But that would require very specialized equipment. And such equipment is *very* expensive. (I have heard rumors that there is cheaper equipment available, like for a few hundred dollars, but the final conversion is low quality. I’d want to see a demonstration of such equipment before I spent money on it.)
I don’t know how many tapes you have, but you may be better served by just taking your tape to a conversion specialist. I can’t recommend a particular company here – you’ll have to research on your own – because I don’t know your location and the specifics of your conversion needs. But any large city will have many audio/video converter companies. I’d recommend finding someone local, if possible. That way you don’t have to trust your tapes to the mail and sending them off to an anonymous store.
If you don’t want to use a conversion service, another option is to do it yourself manually. However, without the super-expensive conversion equipment, you’d set up something like this:
A — B — C
A = A playback device for your tape types (like the multi-system VHS players you mention)
B = audio / video cabling compatible with A and C
C = A computer with audio / video input
The goal here is to get your recorded video on the computer. If you can do that – get the tape contents on your PC in the form of a digital file – you can then run many kinds of software to perform the conversion process. There are lots of free and commercial software packages that will do this for you. You’ll generally have to manually convert the video, then the audio, then recombine those channels back into a single file like an AVI. Then you take that video and burn it to a DVD (with whatever encoding, format and region you want).
In this way, you can build a custom DVD collection of all your tapes. (Another option is to not do any conversion – just record the videos and leave them on your computer, available for playback anytime you want. Just remember to make many backups of this important information!)
I hope this information helps you out. It’s not definitive, and I answered your questions by giving you a bunch of options. That’s because your situation is pretty complex. However, this should be enough to get you started and help you determine the scale of what you’re trying to accomplish. Good luck!
