Home audio & video forum: Best recorder VHS to HDD ?

http://www.amazon.com/Honestech-VHS-DVD-5-0-Deluxe/dp/B0040FT30O/

The primary reason you would want to use a capture device attached to a PC is they are less buggy and you gain control over the end product, including file format, as you've mentioned. The all in one units are much more problematic in this regard. The idea of simply 'removing a hard drive' as you've suggested isn't in the cards with those particular devices. What's stored on the drives is intended for playback and not export, generally. I assume something like the following is what you are referring to?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Toshiba-RDXV48-160Gb-Recorder-Freeview/dp/B00138FAEE

http://reviews.cnet.com/video-players-and-recorders/panasonic-dmr-eh75v-dvd/1707-6463_7-31864416.html

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http://www.gadgetspeak.com/gadget/article.rhtm/751/390722/Funai_Three_in_One_HDR-B2735.html



If you are talking about a one time transfer/conversion for each tape you own, I would still opt for a capture device and PC. You gain more control over the process.
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These are the devices I was looking into. I know that the Funai device can record in different quality/size, which was one of my concerns. It also has a USB port but I fear that it only lets you playback from it, not export through it.

I didn't find one unit that met your specs. This is why I abandoned the search even though I own one of the usual HDD recorders (which failed your spec too.)

All the units that have HDDs that I encountered use proprietary files systems that are not like anything in Linux or other systems. Your thought of removing the HDD is something you may not accept as a dead end.
Bob

Hey Bob,

this is the major fear I have that keeps me from buying these devices. If there is one device that does not use proprietary formatting and video format I will buy it immediately.

If there is really no such device, my second best idea would be buying a video capturing standalone device like the ones from DViCO. But I have the same issue here: the features tell me alot about playback formats but nothing about capturing formats, export capabilities, HDD formatting.

ftp://ftp.dvico.com/Manual/TViX/S1/TViX_Slim_S1_English.pdf and all I could read tell me this is a PLAYER not a RECORDER.

Maybe I misread what you are after. Did you need a HD player to connect to your HDTV?
Bob

Sorry, I must have mixed up the links. Here is the recording version.

"TVIX-HD's FTP server and Samba server allow you totransfer files from your PC"

I read the entire manual and nothing tells me I can transfer from the device to the PC. Only from the PC to the device.

There are reasons such a thing is not made but that's not what this discussion is about. I think the VHS system I noted is cheap and effective.
Bob

I think you need an composite input connect. What I get from reading the spec. on this unit. I see it has a composite connection but not mention of whether it's input or output though. If it's not input then you might need an adapter like this as well.

http://www.cablewholesale.com/hires/40x3-30600.jpg

Give model number or link then maybe we can tell you its capabilities.

please see the 3 links above from Pepe7...

If these are commercial (movies) tapes, they maybe copy protected, which means you might not be able to copy. But if you can bypass that...we don't need to know, hehe.

I forgot about that part. Hopefully the OP is working with non-protected content from VHS.

protected tapes. Integrated software such as InterVideo WinDVD Creator won't either. I use a capture device from ADS which includes Ulead software that will copy any tape.

That's definitely going to help someone who visits in the future w/ the same question. Very nice!

What's your take on the .wtv format so far? I've not worked with that one before. Just wondering if you've encountered any issues vs others that are more common in cyberspace...

cheers,
P

My experience with the wtv format is really limited to cutting commercials out of shows, watching them, and recording them to "finalized" DVD and Blu-Ray discs (Blu-Ray so far just to test it, but I have burned a lot of DVD's I put in a Sony 400 DVD changer/player.

The basis to my set-up in this context, is Win7 Windows Media Center (WMC) with a WinTV board and a software package I found here (download.com) called VideoReDo TV H.264 (VRD). So basically a DVR that lets you edit.

Mostly I record shows using WMC and then use VRD to remove the commercials, the watch them commercial free through WMC and burn some of them to a DVD that is finalized for playback in any DVD/Blu-Ray player. (I have a 400 DVD Sony changer we keep certain seriies in for re-watching they go in)

For this wtv has worked out very will, I record HD commercial channels in the WMC "best" quality mode and it is OK on disk space, typical is 4GB disk per hour of programming.

It takes VRD a couple seconds to load the wtv file for the 1 hour show, then about a minute to scan it for commercials and once you agree with the suggested cut another couple minutes to save the with your cuts, I often cut things like long openings with no show content as well as commercials.

So end to end, it takes about 5 minutes to open, cut, and save a 1 hour show which is now a 38-42 minutes show. I also have it put chapter marks at the places I cut since the commercials are already strategically placed they serve well as chapter markers, this tends to apply more to movies but still is nice

I give the times to process and space as it is the only things I am really familiar with, so hopewfully you can relate that to your expiences doing similar things on other formats.

Other things I have done with VideoReDo is format conversions, go to DVD or Blu-Ray, and MPEG4.

In all cases the quiality is retained, there are no artifacts introduced, and no video/audio sync issues and to my eye and through my playback devices, I see no differences. (HP 2310e Monitor and Panasonic 50" Plasma TV")

I gave the times to process, space, and results as the only things I am familiar with to speak on, I am a major novie in the video and multi-media space, took me two years to figure out my HTPC, so hopefully you can relate that to your expiences doing similar things on other formats. For me wtv is working out very well.

Hey WildClay, thank you much for your replies!!!
So I figure that all one-solution-devices use proprietary formats for copy protection, which is not usable for me. Why would I spend dozens of hours to rescue my tapes from one dead format to another...?

So the 2nd best option is a VCR for playback and a standalone DVR for recording. But the big question still is which device allows to record in a format I can directly use without having to transcode it.
I read that some DVRs produce small chunk files in a strange format, others use a proprietary formatting or, if they are able to record to a normally formatted HDD, somehow encript the files to make them unusable without the unit! And I was almost believing in this one here, before I read that it can only record 30 minute chunks and one has to press the record button again for longer capturing!! How stupid is that?!?!

I can directly use without having to transcode it." The answer is most if not all of them can be play without transcoding. It depends on what player/device you have. Of course the most readily available device is a dvd player. However, you mention you like h.246 format for its space saving usage. There you are...you can't have it both way.

Personally, all my stuffs are in dvd format. Reason being the dvd discs are inexpensive. I use divx format when dvd discs were more expensive...and there were many players that were capable of playing divx.

DVDs are expensive compared to HDDs. As well, they require more physical space. They can get scratches and are not as easy to backup as files on an HDD. Self burned DVDs and CDs dont last as long as advertised.

Understand, WildClay's solution doesn't imply your final product has to be on a physical disk. That's only the one he spoke most about in his description above given his playback preferences & particular stable of hardware/devices.

Instead of exporting/creating a DVD, you could stick with a MP4 file on the PC and send to another PC or device for playback of your choice. If you went with another solution that imported your footage and produced compressed MP4 files from the get go you would be all set, basically.

I ended up burning those DVD to have them in the 400 DVD changer with the rest of the stuff, and will still do some going forward, but most of what I record will never see a DVD, just played back on the PC or TV from the PC.

You are spot on about the research, this is not really "off-the-shelf" yet in the sense of a nicely integrated solution and like most things one really needs to approach the solution from what they plan to actually do and then seek out the best fit for those requirementsm and that can mean (it did for me) doing a lot of reading and a lot of downloading and trying these packages out.

The solution I ended up with was not even on my radar at the start of this adventure and I was very glad I took the time to find the right combination for what I needed to to and how I wanted to do it, and the time to think it all out.

The highpoint of what I ended up with give the best of both worlds, very rare to have to convert formats, everything plays out of WMC, I can burn to DVD, just keep on HDD, or covert it to mpeg4 and put it narly anywhere.

If the OP has a set plan to just move his tapes to DVD and does not want to get into the whole media center deal then his ideal answer is likely going to be different than others. The good news is that if he goes with a DVR then his future options are still open and worse case is he ends putting his DVR on ebay after a couple of years and still has his DVD, and the files on his PC or a spare 2TB USB drive.

Contrary to what you might think, if you start using UDF as a file format for saving to DVD-RW, you won't always be able to use one like an old floppy or current USB drive. It's still mucky business to some degree. That's why I always recommend write once schemes for video projects. You don't want to lose the good stuff