Question:
I have read various reports on devices to convert my vhs tapes to dvd and just get more disallusioned.
Is there a foolproof way to do this that will provide copies of a similar standard to the originals.
The reports I have read mentioned stuttering and a loss of quality. Does it depend on your pc processor quality?
Answers:
Your computer must have a video capture card (or a similar device) that can capture or convert the analog video signal from the VHS tape to a digital format.
To copy VHS tapes to DVD, you will need video editing software that can capture analog video, edit the video, and burn (publish) the video to a final format, such as a DVD.
Once you have all your tools in place and learn to use them, you can archive your old videos quickly onto quality DVDs.
Check out, loads of software, articles and guides on what you need and how to get started..
Answers:
The easiest way is to get a dvd recorder (standalone) and attach the dvd via scart to vhs recorder.
The alternative as said is to use a pc capture card or a video card that supports Video In, most pc cards only support Video Out or DV Out. You also need the supplied software to edit video where applicable and a reasonable system P4 2ghz or eqivaulent and plenty of ram 512MB or greater and have NTFS file format on hard drive rather than Fat32 as video takes a lot of hard drive space and Fat32 only goes to 4GB file size, unless you keep the filesizes small.
Answers:
Cheapest way : Buy a £20 TV card .. use the enclosed software to capture your video directly as raw avi files, then use virtual dub to convert them to DVD. Slow process but you get best results. Need a reasonably fast PC ... about 1.2ghz cpu as a minimum, but 2ghz recommnded. Also need a lot of hdd space.
Checkout for tutorials.
Best method: Busy a vcs/dvd recorder standalone combo. I am sure I have seen them for well under £200 in Asda not long ago.
Answers:
As Poppycat says, the simplest way is to attach a DVD recorder to a VHS player and press play on one and record on the other. I have recently converted many hours of VHS camcorder footage this way and it worked fine. Fiddling around with video capture cards does not sound like fun. I also looked into this approach and you need a fairly new PC (newer than around 3 years old) and lots of patience.
Not too keen on the 'combo' approach suggested by machofairy. As you probably already have a VHS player, much cheaper to just buy a DVD recorder.