converting VHS to digital

[Bruce Marshall]

On Monday 30 May 2005 04:10 pm, Net Llama! wrote:
> On Mon, 30 May 2005, Leon Goldstein wrote:
> > Net Llama! wrote:
> > >Anyone here have any experience converting VHS videotapes to a digital
> > >format (divx/mpg/avi, etc)?  I've got a ton of old VHS movies that are
> > >likely going to be rotting soon, and I'd like to get them converted to a
> > >digital format (in linux).  I'm interested in the entire process, as I
> > >know zero about this sort of thing.
> >
> > I second the question.  I want to archive some VHS tapes to DVD.  From
> > what I've gathered so far, this requires some sort of interface hardware
> > and the appropriate software, which is abundantly available in Win and OS
> > X.
>
> my only guess is that running an S-video cable between the VCR & videocard
> might be the only neccesary hardware, but i'm not sure if that's true, and
> i still have no clue what to do after that.

It's not easy.....    but you need to have either a videocapture card (aka 
Hauppage or the like)  or something that will do the conversion.   I've used 
a Canopus box which takes in S-video or other analog connections and outputs 
data on firewire.   In linux, dvgrab will catch the output on the firewire 
and write it to an avi file.

But from there it takes a lot of tinkering with mencoder and transcode and 
other programs to manipulate the data into mpeg or divx or whatever you need 
to have to get it onto a DVD.   

I know people who have done it and I tried to pick their brain, but was never 
able to get enough information to do the job.