stumesa
i have a dvd recorder that i can transfer vcr tapes to my dvd player, how do i do that?
Answer
All you have to do is VCR outputs (composite/Yellow and audio/red & white jacks) to the corresponding inputs on the recorder. Hit play,VHS...hit record, dvd recorder and you're done. Stop the DVD recorder and put in new blank dics. Repeat as necessary.
Many dvd recorders allow you to make a basic main menu if you want to break up the dvd into accessible parts. Also be aware that you can get more onto a DVD by varying the record mode on your recorder. But, more on a disc means lower quality. You should also make sure you buy the right blank discs for your brand of recorder. Most handle DVD-Rs but a few brands use DVD+Rs. Check your manual. The patch cables for dubbing can be purchased at your local Radio Shack...you'll need "RCA to RCA".
hope that helps!!!
Need DVD Player/Recorder Suggestions!?
Randi
I need a dvd player that will let me record all of my vhs tapes onto dvds. What exactly should I look for/Do you know of any certain ones that are better than the others.
Yes I do have home videos that I need to make a bunch of copies of for family and I also have 300 VHS tapes that I want to transfer to dvd and I also want to be able to record movies from tv. The editing feature would be neat and I figured I'd need it if I put more than 1 movie on 1 disc.
Answer
ADDITIONAL START:
For recording movies from TV, if you don't like commercials, I'd get a hard-drive DVD recorder for the extra money so you can edit them out.
Most have basic editing options, but some are much better than others. Again, videohelp.com is a great source for detailed information, and reviews of equipment.
*I've had Toshiba HD DVD-recorders, and liked them. After about 1,000 tapes copied each (avg of 5 hrs each), and thousands more hours of TV, I literally burned them out, though... but my usage is NOT normal... :>
**I currently have a Panasonic DVR-660H (which has a 250 gb drive - the 560H is a 160 gb drive), which does a pretty good job of marking commercials automatically, so I just have to browse through & 'erase chapters' - still have to do it one-by-one, but I don't need to search for them manually.
If your 300 tapes are TV shows, with commercials, this is a GREAT option... but!!! it's still a fair bit of work.
I'm a perfectionist, and happy to spend many evenings editing. But the Panasonic means I don't have to do as much work on it as I did with the Toshibas.
When recording, you are allowed (on ?all? DVD recorders) to select the quality (like a 2-4-6 hr tape choice of SL-LP-EP), you can select similar options - from about 1hr-per-DVD at high quality, to about 10hrs-per-DVD at low quality.
Therefore, a high-quality recording will fit just 1 hr on a disc, and a tightly-packed recording can stretch 10hrs on a disc, but at a lower quality of picture.
On new recordings from TV, you choose how good to record - and on some machines (like the Toshibas), you can convert a high-quality to a lower-quality recording, in case it went long, and won't fit on a disc.
But for transfers from tape, it won't improve the picture - so you need to experiment to find the balance you're comfortable with.
I've found about 3+ hrs (or 2 movies) per disc roughly matched my 6-hr EP tapes in quality, and they were mostly 2nd-generation recordings (SP original, then copied while editing commercials, to an EP final tape).
I highly recommend the hard-drive DVD recorders with good editing features, over the plain DVD-only recorders.
They're so much more flexible...
But, don't sell your car to buy one if money is tight!!
At this point, if you have patience, maybe wait 'til Boxing Day for sales? Certainly, after you've researched & chosen a make/model, shop around for a better price.
In my neck of the woods, FutureShop and BestBuy are sister companies, but often compete with each other on price - I actually bought my Panasonic on sale at one, the next day the other one had it for $100 cheaper (so I returned it & went to the other place).
Depending on where you are, CircuitCity may be the closest equivalent store chain.
Good luck... and good viewing!
ADDITIONAL END:
I went through this myself, to transfer 2,000 tapes to DVD a couple of years ago.
www.videohelp.com is an excellent user website to find ratings, hints, tips, suggestions, etc...
You'll need to rate yourself as a computer/video technology user, to find more helpful advice here, I think... I'll answer, assuming you're middle-of-the-road.
...and budget is important - $200 or $500 to spend?
Are you looking to transfer lots of tapes, one-time, trash the tapes and never need the VCR again? If you already have a VCR, don't spend money on a combo unit - buy a DVD-recorder (optionally with a hard drive).
Get a stereo/video cable out from the VCR & into the new machine, which would then be turned to "input 1" instead of a TV channel.
If you simply want to transfer straight tape-to-disc, without editing - ie. family videos, or things which may already have exactly what you want to continue seeing, a hard drive machine would not be needed. The DVD recording straight on disc would be fine.
I did massive amounts of editing on my collection, so I went whole-hog on my purchases:
If you have a large-collection, where you want to put various recordings together, do some editing (lose commercials, clip out parts, etc... I had lots of TV shows on each tape, and decided to transfer only some of them, so had to edit first) and have lots of time to spend on it.
160GB hard drives are fairly standard on these machines (and PLENTY big enough if you're an average TV or computer user) - 250GB is usually the bigger model option, for $100+ more.
Ability to RECORD, and PLAY, simultaneously - so you're recording from tape, but also able to watch another previous recording.
All these machines will record ONLY real-time (not like some audiotape players, which can dub at high-speed).
So if you've got 8-hour EP VHS tapes to transfer, you want the machine to be able to play another show, while recording from your tape.
Editing features - this you need to research as all machines are different:
-commercial skip - my newest machine does a good job of identifying commercials & other major scene changes, and marks them as chapters (like a DVD movie) that I can delete before a final recording.
- chapter authoring - is it good enough to automatically mark every 1, 2, 5-minutes as a chapter? or do you want to mark them carefully, down to the second (or the individual frame)?
.....lots of questions, so you need to consider what more you're going to do, and how much time/effort would be needed - and how much you're willing to give to it - to do this transfer job.
With more information, I'm more than happy to help further...
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