Video to DVD, Sans PC

In the 25th week of my wife's pregnancy, she had an ultrasound taken at a facility where you can get a videotape of the event. If ever there was a visual that I wanted to last, this was it. But instead I had a tape. Videotape degrades with time. It wears down with each playback. So I needed to get this little keepsake onto DVD, preferably before the kid was ready to enter high school.

Because doing the job is easier than ever, now's the time to preserve VHS memories like this one--and everyday home movies of beach weekends, recitals, and parties--by converting them to DVD. Compared with tape, a DVD captures better picture and sound and does not degenerate in quality from repeated play. Plus, with a DVD, you can insert chapter marks to access a part of the story quickly. VHS-to-DVD conversion has been possible via the PC for a few years, but the latest DVD recorders offer a quick and convenient route to digital video.

I tried several options for transferring VHS tape to DVD without PC: a GoVideo all-in-one combination unit consisting of a DVD recorder and a VCR; a Sharp DVD recorder with a built-in hard drive; and YesVideo, a mail-in service that handles the conversion for you. My conclusion: In general, you can't beat DVD recorders for hassle-free dubbing, but some units lack certain advanced video editing tools that PC products offer.

Copy That

Now that prices have fallen to between $250 and $800, DVD recorders seem poised to replace VCRs. The basic method for transferring video from VHS to DVD using standard equipment isn't complicated. You connect an RCA cable from the VCR's video and audio outputs to the DVD recorder's inputs, press Play on the VCR, and press Record on the DVD recorder.

You don't need any additional gear such as a PC video capture card, because the DVD recorder has all the necessary capture and conversion features. Unfortunately there's no way to speed up this process: Every minute of tape takes a minute to record. And I had a hard time syncing the recording as closely as I wanted to, using the basic method. The devices I tried took from 2 to 10 seconds to start after I pressed the Record button, so timing required some finesse. Inevitably I cut off the beginning or got snow at the end.

A combo DVD recorder/VCR, such as GoVideo's $399 VR4940, solves that problem. Because both devices are integrated into a single box, dubbing becomes a simple two-click process: Press Copy on the remote control, and then confirm that you want to do it. This particular model will even stop recording when the videotape ends, if you haven't already pressed Stop. And you can copy video from DVD to VHS just as easily.

In addition to home movies, you may have a large library of commercially produced films sitting on the shelf. So why not turn your Star Wars VHS tape into a DVD, too? The copy-protection features on most VHS tapes prevent this. When you try to record a protected tape, you'll receive an error message and get a disc full of blue screen.

How easy is it to improve your movie? If you use a DVD-RW or DVD+RW disc, you'll be able to edit the material on the disc by using Video Recording mode; if you format a DVD-RW disc in VR mode, however, the disc will work only in a player that supports DVD-RW.

VR mode permits editing only in the most liberal sense of the word. Working with the GoVideo recorder's on-screen display and remote control, I was lucky to edit material within a second of what I wanted. By comparison, when you edit video on a PC, software allows you to trim scenes by a fraction of a second if you wish.

You may also want to break your disc into chapters, like those that you see on a rented DVD movie. With most units, you have the option to do this manually or to insert a chapter automatically every so often--say, every 10 minutes. You can change the order of scenes in VR mode by making a chapter playlist; this kind of editing function is far easier to do on a PC, though, because you drag and drop instead of fiddling with a display and a remote.

Hard-Drive Option

If you're interested in doing a fair amount of editing instead of just making direct copies, consider purchasing a DVD recorder that has a built-in hard drive, such as Sharp's $800 DV-HR300U. With this kind of recorder, you transfer video from VHS to the hard drive before burning it to disc.

Using the Sharp DV-HR300U's 80GB hard drive, you can do the same kind of editing as in VR mode on a rewritable disc. But the main advantage here is that you can burn the result to a DVD-R or DVD+R disc; both are affordable, write-once formats that play in almost any current DVD player.

I ran into many of the same editing difficulties with the Sharp device as I had with GoVideo's; I had trouble controlling the timing, and using the remote control (rather than a mouse) wasn't easy at times.

On the bright side, a hard-drive recorder makes creating multiple copies of a home movie a snap. As the eager grandparents-to-be clamored for copies of our ultrasound movie, I cued it up again from the hard drive instead of redubbing the entire thing.

The Sharp DV-HR300U offered significantly better menu options than GoVideo's unit did. Thanks to movies, we're accustomed to attractive visual menus on our DVDs, with thumbnail pictures that show the start of chapters. But on DVD-R videos that I created using GoVideo's recorder, the menus were text-only (though VR mode did allow thumbnails). The Sharp recorder created menus with thumbnails that I could easily select from any frame in the chapter; but the result did not look as polished as a professional DVD.

Speaking of polish, I had to choose a quality level to record at. Settings differed, but the main modes available were SP (Standard Play) and LP (Long Play); the Sharp unit offered several other choices as well.

SP mode gave me about 2 hours of recording time; in LP mode, I could squeeze in 4 hours. When using DVD-R and DVD-RW discs, I could see the difference between the two speeds in copied home movies, but it wasn't glaring. Backgrounds seemed slightly rougher in LP mode, and facial features were less sharp. My goal was to preserve family events for posterity, though, so it wasn't worthwhile to pack in an extra 2 hours; instead, I just used another DVD-R disc. (I bought a five-pack for $10.)

Mail It In

Of course, you could pay someone else to do VHS conversion work for you. But the service doesn't always come cheap: One photo shop in Berkeley, California, offered to make me a DVD of a 1.5-hour VHS tape for $35, with no chapter stops. For any actual editing (including chapters), prices started at $75 an hour. A store located in San Francisco told me that it transfers tapes for $15 per hour, plus $2.50 per title or chapter insert. At those rates, you might as well buy your own recorder.

Mail-in services, however, offer a more affordable route. A company such as YesVideo will create a DVD copy of a VHS tape for just $25, including chapter stops. I sent in the ultrasound tape and some vacation travel footage to Yes-Video. The video transferred to DVD sounded and looked as good as the source. And the company did a pretty good job of inserting chapters, too, although at the end of the disc the technician missed several obvious spots to put new chapters. The disc comes in a nice-looking package, with a case that displays a thumbnail from each chapter.

It's a straight copy, though. YesVideo doesn't edit out the bad parts, like interference, on the tape. And completing the job takes up to two weeks from the time you drop off the tape, whereas local stores perform conversions in a day or two.

Your Best Choice

All in all, which option will be smartest for you? If you have relatively few tapes that you want to convert, a service like YesVideo is the way to go. Just be sure to make a copy of your priceless movie before you send the original on its way. (If you don't have a second VCR, try to borrow one.)

If you expect to work with tapes often, you can't beat the convenience of a combination recorder like GoVideo's for producing straight copies of VHS movies. But if you need to perform basic editing and make multiple copies, moving up to a DVD recorder with a hard drive makes sense, especially if you also plan to use it to record TV shows.

After the converting is done, you can relax and relive your favorite memories--without fear that they'll fade away.

Video-to-DVD Transfer Tips

Follow these strategies to get the best results from your VHS-to-DVD conversion.

Use a good VCR: Your DVD can look only as good as the feed from the VHS player. There's nothing you can do to improve the quality of the VHS tape, but you can use a high-quality, four-head VCR. If you have an older model, upgrade, or borrow a better unit from a friend or a neighbor.

Adjust tracking first: Before pressing Record on the DVD player, make sure you've adjusted the tracking on the VCR. Doing so helps eliminate distortion. Many VCRs automatically calibrate the tracking when you play a videotape, so watch out for on-screen displays, which the DVD player will record.

Use Standard Play quality: If your goal is to preserve priceless memories, don't skimp on the recording quality in order to pack more video onto one disc. You can find DVD-R or DVD+R discs for just $2 if you shop around.

Use DVD-R or DVD+R format when possible: Most DVD players can read these discs. Not all players can read rewritable discs, especially if they've been formatted in VR mode.

Finalize the disc: If you don't finalize--an option usually available in the recorder's setup menu--when you've finished converting, the disc won't play in other DVD players.