pockygoes

Hi all

Thought it was worth an ask - we have lots of family videos that we have been thinking of putting onto DVDs. We have shopped around & our wedding video that is 5 hours long would cost approx £40 - £50 - we have about 10 other videos that will need doing too.

Someone suggestied buying a DVD-R Video combination - apparently you play the video & record onto DVD. Just wondered if anyone else has done this & if so is there anything we should look for or avoid - presumably we can play the dvd's on a multi region DVD in Oz - even when the DVD Video combination packs up.

We saw one today in Comet - Sharp DVD-r Video combination - £350. Does anyone know anywhere else to try for these & if it will be worth it. It is urgent as our shippers come next week & we were thinking of sending it with the container.

Hope it makes sense - be gentle with me as I am not a techie!!!

thanks

Pockygoes

gsb

Hi Pockygoes

I am no expert, but I thought that this was possible to do via your PC.

I think that you can link your video recorder up to your pc, copy the footage onto your pc and then transfer on to a DVD if you have a DVD RW. Should be a tad cheaper than forking out £350

If I were you I would do a search on the net.

Gary

Deadmeat

Hiya,

If you don't mind having a VHS player AND a DVD Recorder (and you are junking the VHS format anyway) you can buy models that will record DVDs from a VHS player (via a SCART connector or old-style) for around £250.

As Gary says, the VHS to PC option is possible but needs a suitable interface to connect the video player to (either seperate or via a graphics card), a fairly fast PC and a DVD recorder drive. And a big enough hard-drive to hold the "captures".

Hope this helps!

Matt

spalen

If these are private Videos then it should be possible to do what you suggested

I looked at doing it the PC route a while back but when you actually work out the cost... i figured Id rather spend £50 to have a video player around rather than spend a wedge on converting Video to dvd.

You have to do it real-time, so a 3hr tape takes 3hrs to transfer to dvd. If they're commercial videos (kids movies etc) you need a macrovision decoder to remove the copy-protection.

You can buy a card to load the Video on to the PC but you need TONS of disk space. I think the hau-page wintv cards would do it but you wont be able to just do VCR->DVD you have to do VCR->Hard Disk + Muckaboutabit then burn it to DVD and it isnt quick to process 3hours of Video data .

In short - if you can get the VCR/DVD combo to work you'd be ok, but the whole process is a royal pain in the arse and a video recorder costs about £50 - so why not keep them and buy a VCR...

Go to Google and search for " Video to DVD " you'll find tons of helpful info. If you do buy a vcr/dvd combo make sure the guy in the shop is clear that thats what you want it for and if it doesnt do it your bringing it back! . Maybe get one from Argos for 16days and take it back... if it does (or doesnt ) do what you want...

moneypenny20

Just a thought but I would not put it in the container - just in case. You just know that if anything is damaged or missing, it will be precious photos etc. Take it in your baggage.

PBC_1966

And if you are taking video tapes (or any other type of magnetic tape, computer disks etc.) make sure they don't go through the airport X-ray machine where they will be subjected to quite strong magnetic fields.

Insist that bags containing the tapes are inspected by hand. If the check-in/security clerk insists that they must go through X-ray, kick up a fuss. They are obliged to honor a request for manual inspection.

pockygoes

Hi all

Thanks for the replies.

We have already got software to do this all on our PC but although our camcorder is only 3 years old - it has not got the right thingy to connect to the PC - so that is a none starter.

That is why we are hoping to do it with the DVD Video combinations - we do have reservations though that we may not be able to play the dvds on any other DVD over there - ie will they be compatible to play on an Oz DVD player - ie different formats etc.

thanks

pockygoes

Qui~Gon

Hi its been awhile since I looked into this but I'm sure you can get a conveter (adaptor) to make your vhs player conect to your pc I take it that u have a good video card with an s-video socket.
Do your vhs player have composite plugs or is it older then that and we are talking about coax cable or scart cable I'm sure u can get adaptors for either with an s-video outlet for pc!

Just done a quick search and I think this would do u go_Here! and look for this

SCART PLUG - SCART SOCKET + 1 S-VHS, 3 X PHONO IN/OUT SOCKETS
Order Code:- SCSCAD I think thats wot your after its £8
I hope thats wot u were after!

spalen

if you are burning the DVD yourself you should be able to make it region free (region 0 ) , if not then when you buy your dvd player in Aus just make sure you buy a multi-region one which will play any region.

Most dvd players can be 'software hacked' to make them play any region, there are plenty of websites with databases of the 'key codes' to get them to go multi region. Try having a look at ebay.com.au for example there is a DVD multi region player for sale there brand new for $80 (£32) you can probably double that to get a price from a shop ?.

Swagman

Region encoding is only applicable to 'Hollywood' DVDs. If you burn a DVD on your PC on DVD-R or DVD+R it will play on any DVD player anywhere in the UK or Australia.