Digital Focus: Convert VHS Tapes to DVDs

Feature: Convert Analog Video to Digital

When I win the lottery or finally get around to discovering cold fusion, I am going to build a high-tech house that will put both NORAD and Bill Gate's home to shame. I'll have all sorts of high-tech gadgets, like wall-sized LCD screens that show photo montages of serene wildlife, kind of like Arnold Schwarzenegger's apartment in Total Recall. There's no doubt that I'll have a huge HDTV home theater, an Internet-enabled dishwasher, and a wireless network between the laundry room and the refrigerator. I'll probably get around to transferring all of my home movies to DVD, too.

That, and hire Dire Straits to play at my next birthday party.

Unfortunately, we not-quite-billionaires have to upgrade to new technology one step at a time. Converting your old analog VHS and 8mm videotapes to digital--and then burning them onto playable DVD discs--is a great way to start. By copying your old analog videos to digital format, you can ensure they'll still be viewable after the last VCR has been thrown into the incinerator. DVDs don't degrade a little every time you play them like analog tapes do. And DVD is just a lot more convenient than VHS. So dedicate a few weekends to making the transition from analog to digital.

Analog In, Digital Out

Before you can start copying all of that footage onto digital media, you need some way to capture all of the video in your PC. I'm assuming you already have an IEEE 1394 port (also called FireWire or i.Link) on your PC. Many new computers come with an IEEE 1394 port, but if yours doesn't have one you can buy an easy-to-install IEEE 1394 add-in card for around $70.

The IEEE 1394 port will help you transfer video from any Mini-DV or Digital8 camcorder to your PC and store it on the hard disk. Your old camcorder or VCR doesn't have an IEEE 1394 connection. So what do you do?

Take a look at your new digital camcorder. Many have analog inputs. If yours does, it's a snap to transfer the video. Just pop an analog tape into your VCR and connect its outputs to the digital camcorder's analog inputs. Next, plug the camcorder into the PC's IEEE 1394 port.

When you're ready to capture, set the camcorder to playback mode and press the Play button on the VCR. The video will go from the VCR to the camcorder, where it'll pass through the IEEE 1394 cable into the PC. If you start your video capture software and begin recording, you can capture the entire tape in digital format on your PC's hard disk.

8mm: Not Dead Yet

If your movies are in 8mm or Hi8 format, you have a simpler option: Today's Digital8 camcorders can play those older formats just fine. That means you don't have to rig a Rube Goldberg-style plumbing system from your VCR to your camcorder to your PC. Instead, just put your old Hi8 tape in the camcorder, press Play, and capture the video in digital format on your PC.

Unfortunately, you can't do the same for VHS. VHS and mini-DV tapes are so different that no camcorders can play both. Digital8 camcorders, on the other hand, can read analog 8mm tapes because Sony intentionally designed the format for backward compatibility. Score one for Sony.

Making Movies

Finally, now that the video is on your PC, all you need is some DVD production software to finish the job. DVD software can help you break the video into chapters, add menus at the beginning of the disc, and write the whole video to a recordable DVD using your PC's DVD-R drive.

To date, the only consumer drives capable of writing to the widely compatible DVD-R write-once format have been DVD-RW and the latest-generation DVD-RAM models. Soon, however, second-generation DVD+RW drives will offer the capability to write to DVD+R write-once discs. Industry experts suggest that movies on both DVD-R and DVD+R discs should be compatible with about 85 percent of home DVD players. Movies put on DVD-RW and DVD+RW rewritable discs, on the other hand, tend to work with only about half the home DVD players out there. Of course, compatibility is less likely with older DVD players.

Some good DVD production packages include Pinnacle Systems' Pinnacle Express (about $34), Sonic Solutions' MyDVD ($79), and Ulead's DVD MovieFactory (about $44).

But remember, even after you burn your home movies onto DVDs, they won't last forever. Those shiny little discs are neither indestructible nor immortal. Testing suggests that DVDs will degrade after 50 to 100 years, so you'll need to copy their content to memory cubes, neural storage, or your basement's holographic rumpus room before then. But that's a topic for another column in, say, 30 years.