While I am a newbie to this forum, I have been searching and reading through the threads in an attempt to find the answers to my problem. There are many knowledgeable people here and I finally decided that the best way to get my questions answered was to open this thread, rather than appending my questions onto another.

My situation is not unique, but clearly I am very late to this party.

I bought my first VCR in February of 1983. As a big movie lover, over the years I recorded many VHS tapes. Like many others on this forum, I now want to convert many of these recordings over to DVDs.

Although I wish that it were different, I was not aware of this forum when I purchased a Toshiba D-VR660KU combination DVD Recorder/VCR (with tuner) back in March of this year. I got it at a good price as it was a floor model/return (I think it was a return) and so I saved $100. That was enough to push me into making the move to begin the massive transfer project from VHS to DVD. Although I cannot compete with the poster who had over 5000 titles ( !!! – I think it was DigaDo ) I do have a lot of tapes.

After some trial and error, I got my process down and began. I have done some of the tapes I made myself and sometimes removed the commercials by using the “Set Chapter” and “Hide Chapter” capabilities of the Toshiba. I am also able to split titles allowing for the breakup of a recording of multiple movies or episodes. I do this “editing” using a DVD+Rw, and after finalizing, use my computer to copy the DVD+RW to a DVD-R. I check the output DVD on my other DVD player to confirm that the recording is OK. I then reformat the DVD+RW to use again. (This is time consuming, but I do it infrequently. I usually leave the commercials in when I copy.) Of course, if no editing is needed, I record directly to the DVD-R. When copying those purchased (rather than recorded) tapes, I quickly discovered that I was prevented from copying about half of those tapes due to copy protection.

Attempting to find a solution to the handling of the copy protected VHS tapes first led me to purchase a “Digital Video Stabilizer” – model 200 from this site:

checkhere22 dot com / stabilizer

The good news was that I was able to record the movie to DVD. The bad news was that the output video was lightened from the original (which I might have lived with to solve the problem), but additionally, I saw a faint, but unmistakable vertical light stripe moving across the screen on the resulting DVD. It reminded me of one of those alien probes from a Star Trek episode. Since I was trying to record a costume drama featuring Marlon Brando as Napoleon, the special effects were not a welcome addition. I am not sure why this device apparently worked fine for other users but not for me, but it was so.

I returned this item, but ended up having to pay for shipping.

I hit the internet again, a bit more suspicious, and began reading up on video capture cards. Most of the discussions on this topic, however, were 4 – 5 years old and therefore the hardware they talked about was long gone. A visit to a local computer store in the hope of some “expert” advice and I was advised to purchase “DVDMaker USB2.0” – a video capture device (with software) connecting from the RCA cable output from my VCR to the USB port and standard audio input on my computer. After deciphering the very bad documentation, I finally managed to get it to work, concentrating mainly on a direct to DVD recording. The good news was that it did record the movie to the DVD. The bad news was that upon playing back the first finished DVD, I discovered that the video jumped and the audio jumped out of sync with the video and then corrected. Again, this had been recommended as a solution that worked, but my experience was different.

I returned this to the store.

Please excuse the above narrative, but it does bring me to my current situation.

After more internet searching I discovered this forum. Happily, many of the posts were recent and I had hopes that I could get some advice as to a current solution. I have seen references to the Grex, the “Video Filter” as well as references to video stabilizers. I have seen references to TBCs and read up on those, but their price is a bit prohibitive for me at this time. I have read the suggestions to posters as to which recorders to buy, but I am not sure that this is an option for me. I have read opinions as to the quality and reliability of various brands of equipment as well as comments as to which brands are most likely to work harder to enforce the copy protection.

I have a one year warranty on the Toshiba and had to bring it in for service once already when it stopped in the middle of a recording a few times. Additionally, it often has a problem with rewinding tapes, refusing to cleanly release the tape when the rewind is completed. The result is that frequently the tapes get caught in the mechanism and I have to unplug the machine and carefully extract it. I might be able to return it, but the dealer no longer carries this model and the other models they do carry would mean an additional outlay of cash. Since the servicing, I have had no more problems with recording, but the rewind problem has reoccurred.

So…I would welcome your advice on the following…

1. I want to copy VHS tapes that I purchased and own onto DVD with a reasonable result.
2. Tapes that I recorded myself (and some purchased tapes) sometimes have tracking problems. The Toshiba combo unit’s tracking controls are poor. To try to solve this problem, I hooked up my Panasonic VCR (Model PV-V4523S) as input to the combo unit. The tracking controls are much better on the Panasonic. However, sometimes the tracking shifts during the recording, making the beginning OK, but the middle or end a problem. I do not want to have to “babysit” each recording to make sure that the tracking is adjusted if it becomes a problem. Do any of the filters or stabilizers take care of the tracking problem? (I have seen from other postings the recommendations to use the same VCR that made the recording. This is impossible as some of these recordings are over 20 years old and the VCR I used is long gone.)
3. The Panasonic VCR uses only RCA connectors. So, I am limited as to the input into the recorder.
4. If the Grex, or “Video Filter” or other stabilizers are not the way to go, can you recommend a video capture card? I have a 2 year old HP computer running XP Professional. (It sounds, though that the computer route would be much more labor intensive.)
5. If I have to purchase something to help me accomplish my task, I would rather it be something forward looking than backward. I dropped my cable earlier this year as I realized there was nothing that I really enjoyed watching. AT&T Uverse has been recommended to me, but it has not yet reached my location. Currently, I am limited to over the air broadcasts.
6. Should I try to return the Toshiba and just get a plain recorder in exchange? I am passed the 30 day return limit, but I may be able to exchange it for something else (with additional money added.)
7. My budget is limited.


So far, I have completed the DVD copies of my purchased VHS tapes that have no copy protection. I have also done some of my personally recorded tapes. Sometimes I am amazed at how well they have survived. Last night I viewed something I had recorded in April of 1989 and the picture was excellent with virtually no tracking problems.

I am puzzled as to why solutions that appear to solve the problem for some users resulted in inferior results for me and would be interested to know why.

Thank you in advance for any advice or suggestions you can provide.

I am puzzled as to why solutions that appear to solve the problem for some users resulted in inferior results for me and would be interested to know why.

Welcome to this hobby called "hell", new friend!:D

Unfortunately there is no single, "yes this absolutely works for everybody all of the time" solution. There are no real "bargains": the cheaper solutions can be workable, but if you hate the results and end up nagged by doubts, only to buy the pricier gear and do the whole thing over again later on, what have you saved? How much is your time worth?

All in ones like your Toshiba are just not that great. The idea is wonderful but the execution of these VCR/DVD combos is terrible. The only good ones were a couple of long-discontinued Panasonics, favored by DigaDo as you know from perusing these threads. And even there, the fact that they worked for him does not necessarily mean YOU would be happy with them: they were indeed well made combos, but DigaDo was also ridiculously, insanely lucky. Most of us with a great many tapes find the combos hopelessly unworkable, because at the very least you're going to need two or three VCRs of different brands to get the most out of your various tapes.

Check the most current threads in the DVD Recorders topics for additional details posted by many of us, lotsa people using their summer vacation to transfer tapes this year, its a popular topic again. Here are my recommendations based on a few years embroiled in the tape transfer task:

1. Get a good, dedicated DVD/hard drive recorder, preferably a Canadian Pioneer 460 or an import Panasonic EH-67. If on a limited budget, do this now- do this first. Pioneer went out of business in April, causing a run on their recorders and prices to go up. The Panasonic has recently been replaced by an EH-68 which may be crummy compared to the EH-67, which has garnered great user reviews here. The Pioneer runs $300-400 on eBay, the Panasonic about $400-450 from US stores like B&H Photo or J&R Electronics. These machines have been heavily tested for VHS transfer use and found ideal. The built in hard hard drives vastly simplify editing out commercials and finishing/finalizing the DVDs, it saves time and encourages removing useless commercials which suck up DVD capacity that can otherwise be used to increase image quality on the main program.

You can keep your Toshiba for off-air ATSC use, or compromise and buy a Magnavox H2160 ATSC-tuner DVD/HDD recorder instead of a Panasonic or Pioneer. The Magnavox is cruder and not as flexible for tape dubbing, but its pretty good, $100 cheaper than the others, and includes the digital tuner the others don't have. Wal*Mart online is presently out of stock, but Target will supposedly be carrying these in July. For detailed info, see the dedicated threads posted by wajo: there are some gotchas with the current version of the Maganvox which make it kind of clumsy to use. Several members have mentioned some recent Magnavox samples exhibit a "black level bug", which can be especially noticeable on tape transfers (they look much too light or too dark). The Magnavox is exclusively sold by vendors with good refund policies: if you try a Magnavox, be sure to test its rendering of day and night scenes dubbed from tape. If they don't look right to you, return it and get another recorder.

2. Forget the PC capture card route unless you want to die young of a brain hemhorrage. The PC is utterly impractical for dubbing massive tape collections: it takes way too long, and the copy protection issues are worse, as are the VCR compatibility issues. DVD/HDD recorders are designed for copying VHS, the PC is a crapshoot no matter what the board mfrs tell you.

2. Transferring your protected commercial VHS tapes is a pain no matter which way you go. There is no perfect answer here: ALL of the "Grex"-type filters have artifacts (whether their delighted owners notice and post here or not). You are going to see image lightening/darkening, color shifts, faint rolling shadow bars, or herringbone interference with all of them depending on the particular tape. The protection signal was changed from movie to movie over the years, no generic filter is going to match perfectly with every single one- its impossible. The filters can be a godsend but they are a kludge and they aren't perfect. Reconcile yourself that some tapes are just not going to transfer that well, and if possible just replace them with the their commercial DVD counterparts when you see them on sale in superstores. Don't pull your hair out over this, it isn't worth it.

3. If you are really quite disappointed by the dedicated filters, the only thing that will satisfy you is the DataVideo TBC-1000. This is a sturdy TBC that removes most tape protection and broadcast protection without introducing color shifts, rolling bars or other artifacts. It does somewhat soften the image, but not dramatically, and you may find its neutrality far preferable to the dedicated filters. The cost of new ones is absurd at $495, but the bad economy is resulting in a flood of used ones on eBay often for $150 or less. Watch eBay for a couple weeks, if you see one for $150 grab it and give it a spin. You can absolutely get every penny back if you decide not to keep it: they're in pretty high demand. Don't pay over $200, though.

4. You need to have a couple or three good older VCRs. One should definitely be a Panasonic AG1980 or Panasonic AG5710, these twins sold for $2000 not long ago but can be found used on eBay for as little as $99 (shop carefully). They have their own kind of different, built-in TBC and noise/color filters, and they track a wide variety of tapes very well. JVC or Mitsubishi DVHS vcrs were comparable to the AG1980 and also good. In addition to a premium deck, collect as many "cheap" vcrs as you can comfortably store in your house. Look at local Craigs List ads, people are giving away their VCRs for $10-20. Try to get a Mitsubishi, a Sharp, a Quasar, a Hitachi and perhaps even an LG or Emerson. One or another of these will be a lifesaver when you least expect it.

If money is super-tight, and you have some patience, monitor eBay for listings of the Panasonic AG-2560. This vcr was made in 2000, is incredibly rugged, tracks very well, and while not as "premium" as the older AG1980 it comes damn close with very good color and detail reproduction. The AG2560 is rather uncommon but turns up every few weeks for $40-50, usually minus the remote (any universal remote can control it under a generic Panasonic code). This is one of the least-known, great performing VCRs out there: of all the VCRs I've used for DVD transfer, it comes closest to being universally compatible with everything. I now use AG2560s for 90% of my tape transfers: they just save so much time by not needing adjustment and futzing for most tapes. When you have hundreds and hundreds of tapes to transfer, you realize pretty quickly that "perfect" results for every single tape would require an entire crew: it can't be done by one person unless you learn to settle for 80% of perfect for most tapes and devote your limited time to pursuing 100% on just the most important recordings. I've found the AG2560 nails 80-85% quality with no adjustments or nannying from me on the majority of my tapes: since discovering it my workflow is much faster. Check out a few second-hand VCRs until you find one that performs similarly on your own tapes: its the biggest factor impacting your time.

5. Nannying the process is almost always necessary, unless you're prepared to let occasional mistracking slide. VHS was a far from perfect medium, even your best tapes are bound to "hiccup" somewhere and you'll need to redo or edit out that snippet. After awhile you learn to just live with them and leave them in, although a DVD/HDD recorder makes it very easy to trim such glitches before burning the DVD. While subject to tracking glitches here and there, overall VHS is a remarkably sturdy medium: if the blanks were decent-quality to begin with, in normal household storage they last decades and still play perfectly. I got bit by the VHS bug back in 1981, and all my tapes from back then still play just fine.

Good luck, and take things one step at a time. Do some more reading here on AVS. And spend your money in stages if necessary: as I said, the most hard to find thing is a good DVD/HDD recorder, they didn't sell well in the USA and are a bit rare and sought after, prioritize that above all. Used VCRs will be available forever, TBCs and filters will always be around, your tapes won't deteriorate sitting another year in storage. Its better to slowly acquire the right gear before starting, than reinvent the wheel over and over again.

While I am a newbie to this forum, I have been searching and reading through the threads in an attempt to find the answers to my problem. There are many knowledgeable people here and I finally decided that the best way to get my questions answered was to open this thread, rather than appending my questions onto another.
.
.
.
I am puzzled as to why solutions that appear to solve the problem for some users resulted in inferior results for me and would be interested to know why.

Thank you in advance for any advice or suggestions you can provide.
Starting our own thread is a good idea. I applaude your common sense.

The solutions that appear to work for others but not for you is exactly that--an ]b]appearance[/b] to work for others. After my own dubbing project of nearly 1,500 tapes, I can tell you that I encountered many of the problems you have.

The combo units are a great idea with little return on their promise. I never got them to work right, not even the Panasonic EH75! It seemed to lok the tracking so once a transfer started, you could not change it. It was common for me to record material from different recorders on one tape, and the tracking would always go way off between segments. I had to go back and restart each segment. Not very effective.

If you have many tapes, and only you can assess how much the content is worth to you, I agree that an HDD model is a requirement for any sizable project. The mag/Phil should work, but the Panasonic or Pioneer would be better.

There are LOTS of threads here about filters. You can read them and decide for yourself. Cost/availability/quality are the key factors, with a what you pay directly affects the quality of your finished transfer.

I ended up having four VCRs connected to two recorders that I used for transferrs. They were a Sony, A Panasonic, a JVC, and a Mitsubishi. The Panasonic S4690 proved to be the best at tracking for my purposes.

I never tried using a PC. Too many reports like yours discouraged me from that rout.

CitiBear's post is correct and reliable. I was just adding my experiences. The task is frustrating, and time consuming, but you can get through it. Patience is a requirement.

And don't mess up your hard work by using cheap media! Use T-Y 8x premium disks from a reliable source.

Lark,

You've gotten a boatload of great information from two of the best posters on these boards so my little missive here will be short. I'll just mention what worked for me... and was cheap-ish.

I've made dvd copies of a couple dozen or so VHS tapes using a laptop PC running XP MCE, a Dazzle USB dongle, and a Sony VCR vintage 2000. I never had tracking problems or picture/sound synch issues or copy protection issues. I never needed a stabilizer.
I edited the resulting video files in NERO and burned DVDs with ImgBurn and the results were perfectly fine. The dvd picture looked exactly like the original VHS picture...

Now, it may very well be that I'm lucky, or that my PC was built to handle video, or my VCR is especially reliable, or Dazzle was having a good day when they built the dongle... or all of the above.

That being said, IMHO, the glaring weakness in all this VHS dubbing, regardless of the method used or the equipment.... is the source. A VHS picture just isn't that great. AND a home made recording on VHS on anything longer than 2hr mode will be even less great. AND the bigger the video screen, the more glaring the shortcomings of VHS-sourced video. What looked OK to me on my old Toshiba 27" TV, looked only "passable, I can live with it" on a Sony 36" TV, and became humorously poor on a new 46" Samsung LCD. VHS wasn't made for large screens.

I hope there is a modicum of potentially helpful info here...

Ditto to Citybear's point #2 (the second 2):)
I think alot of the artifacts your getting from dubbing purchased VHS tapes is the copy protection stuff. It comes in various forms from not recording at all to lines running through picture to picture being offset on the screen to everything being light, you name it.
Personally, it's far too much work and expense, not to mention a practice in frustration to try to circumvent the copy protection on VHS tapes only to have a recording you would not be able to watch except on a CRT TV. (VHS on a LCD, Plasma or DLP is practically unwatchable).
You could actually save money and loads of time and headaches if you went out and purchased the DVD counterparts to those tapes that just won't copy well. In fact, bargain hunt on the internet for the DVDs and save more money.
I have sorted all my tapes into boxes seperate box for ones I know I can copy (usually all the home made ones), ones I have not tried yet and ones that I know I can not copy and need to just go purchase the DVD version. Sometimes amazon has sales on DVDs in which you might catch some ones you want for example.
If you want some real fun try getting DVDs of shows that are rare that they don't even have on the internet, like Space 1999 for a decent price. :p That's one of my adventures I'm doing.
I'm also working on trying to find a way to record some episodes of old TV shows off Hulu onto DVD. (I wouldn't bother trying for entire seasons, too much work and I have too many tapes to do anyway).:(

What looked OK to me on my old Toshiba 27" TV, looked only "passable, I can live with it" on a Sony 36" TV, and became humorously poor on a new 46" Samsung LCD. VHS wasn't made for large screens.

Yup, thats a very important angle to this I forgot to mention. No matter how good the DVD copy from VHS (and it can be very very good), it really never looks decent on the "new tech" LCD displays everyone has, especially the larger 36, 42 and 50 inch. These damn displays often make even flawless Hollywood DVDs look blah, and BluRay is not much of an upgrade half the time. LCD screens just plain suck showing anything but live HiDef sporting events. So it may not be the best idea to use them to judge the results you're getting: you may also want to test a few of your transfers on the old 20" Trinitron in the bedroom. Plasma screens show standard def a little better than LCD, and in a few years OLED screens will be affordable and a big improvement over todays LCD: eventually better displays will let you enjoy the transferred VHS a little more.

Ditto to Citybear's point #2 (the second 2):)


My first instinct was to go back and fix the numbering, now that you've shown me my goof. My second instinct is to just leave it, otherwise your followup wouldn't make sense!:D

Yeah Citibear, now look what youv'e done.:p;) LOL
The VHS on big screen is a good point and one I keep forgetting about in my own copying adventure to take place.
Personally, my real goal is simply to preserve. I have a 40 inch Sammy LCD, but the DVD recordings from the tapes could well be unwatchable on that. However, I also have a 25 inch Zenith CRT TV (about 13 years old and still great. Even better at cable than my sammy) that will be fine for the dubbed DVDs. All I need to do is get an inexpensive DVD "player" and I'm good to go.
(I have my high-end DVD player hooked to the Sammy obviously).

Welcome to this hobby called "hell" . . .

Unfortunately there is no single, "yes this absolutely works for everybody all of the time" solution. There are no real "bargains": the cheaper solutions can be workable, but if you hate the results and end up nagged by doubts, only to buy the pricier gear and do the whole thing over again later on, what have you saved? How much is your time worth?

All in ones like your Toshiba are just not that great. The idea is wonderful but the execution of these VCR/DVD combos is terrible. The only good ones were a couple of long-discontinued Panasonics, favored by DigaDo as you know from perusing these threads. And even there, the fact that they worked for him does not necessarily mean YOU would be happy with them: they were indeed well made combos, but DigaDo was also ridiculously, insanely lucky. Most of us with a great many tapes find the combos hopelessly unworkable, because at the very least you're going to need two or three VCRs of different brands to get the most out of your various tapes.

Check the most current threads in the DVD Recorders topics for additional details posted by many of us, lotsa people using their summer vacation to transfer tapes this year, its a popular topic again . . .

So true. Ah, the memories! There are a number of older threads where "survivors" provide insight/advice concerning this insanity. Here are two such threads, one going back to May 2008; the other going back to October 2008:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1033373

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1080128

My experience was made easier as the material I transferred to DVD was largely commercial-free. Had editing commercials been a consideration and cost no object, I would have purchased Panasonic hard drive machines, transferred the material to hard drive, edited out commercials and high speed dubbed the material to DVD for archiving. Another consideration was the size of my archive, around 2,000 tapes, determining use of several machines running concurrently for direct transfer of "selected" material to DVD. My "older" Panasonics (DMR-ES30V, DMR-ES35V, DMR-ES15 models) served me well as the "workhorses" in this selective dubbing project. The same project would have been impossible with Panasonic EZ series machines as they have been stripped of the FUNCTIONS menu-initiated dubbing/copying features. Today's other "garden variety" combo recorders __(insert brand and model name here)__ are similarly not well suited to such a task.

Some of my older "workhorse" Panasonics were purchased new, some were refurbished by Panasonic, some were customer returns (in new or near new condition) and some were well-used with known problems/defects. I also purchased "as-is" parts machines to cannibalize parts as I learned to repair/rebuild my own Panasonics.

In another thread (Swapping Panasonic DVD Drives) I've described a recent successful project to return to functional condition one DMR-ES35V "parts machine," originally purchased in 2007 for $15.29, including shipping. This machine originally served as a parts donor for other of my machines and, as it exists today, this machine is assembled largely from "second-quality" parts pulled from my heavily used "main" Panasonics. So far this assembled DMR-ES35V has performed well. For the last month it has been recording to DVD from a Comcast coax cable feed and from local digital broadcast channels with a signal input from a Zenith DTT901 CECB. Last night I made the first VHS test recordings and today I expect to check out the FUNCTIONS menu-initiated copying functionality. For those interested in that rebuilding project the most recent series of posts begins here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=16484860#post16484860

Thanks so much for your replies to my post.

A lot of information here.

In response I have a few comments. I’m sure more will occur to me later.

1. Yes, I am using good blank DVDs to record to. (If the output of the whole process is poor, what is the point?). I am also recording whenever possible in SP mode (2 hours per DVD), and LP (4 hours) only if necessary.

2. Commercials. I described in my initial post how I had used the Toshiba’s limited editing capabilities (most of which only work on DVD+RWs) to remove commercials The process was a bit cumbersome, but did the job. Unfortunately, it did not actually free up the unused space (the commercials) to provide more space on the DVD. The ads were simply hidden from view. The resulting output, however, did eliminate the commercials. After taking the time to remove them from the first couple of things I recorded, I decided that for the most part, I was not going to bother removing the commercials. I preferred, instead, to use the time that this would take to get more recordings completed. It may be as I continue that sometimes I might take the time for removing them, but for me, it has less importance than the VHS to DVD transfer. As a side note, it’s rather like a time warp to see the intermittent news updates that appear.

3. Thank you for the links to the other threads. I read through them last night. Interesting to think that a decision as to what brand of VHS tape I bought years ago becomes a factor today. For the most part, I used TDK (either HS or EHG). These seem to have held up pretty well. There are a few other brands mixed in. In fact, the first 2 VHS tapes I used were RCA. (They most likely came with the first VCR I bought. Perhaps the VCR too was an RCA. I can’t remember.) Their output is not as good as the TDKs, but then they were recorded in 1983!

4. Display. I can imagine that displaying the output from a DVD recorded from VHS would hardly compare to digital on a large screen, or more sophisticated display. That is not an issue at this time as I am using a 27” Sony, probably about 10 years old. And as for the future – well my collection includes some really obscure movies, recorded long ago off the “Late, Late Show” on our local TV stations. The original source itself was not the best, so my expectations take that into account. Don’t get me wrong. While I don’t have cable at this time, I did until recently, so quite a number of things on my tapes are good, clear copies. When transferring to the DVD, I want to make the best copy I can. But just because some of my old movies are scratchy to begin with, it doesn’t mean that I won’t watch them.

5. Buying the DVD copies of copy protected VHS tapes. I have considered this. I do most of my DVD purchasing from deepdiscountdvd.com as I have found they generally have excellent prices and they do not charge for shipping. Almost without exception, their prices are less than Amazon. And if you catch the twice a year sale (one should be coming up soon, I think) you can save an additional 15 or 20% on any DVDs you purchase. Some of my movies, though, never made it onto DVD, so the only option is to buy one off ioffer.com (where someone else made a copy from a VHS tape like mine.)

6. Combo DVD Recorder/VCR I find that I most often am using this machine as a recorder only with my Panasonic VCR as input. This allows me to adjust the tracking manually during the process For most of the movies I’ve done so far, this has worked and I only had to redo 1 or 2 because the tracking shifted in the middle. When recording purchased tapes, I used the combo machine. I also recently inherited a Sony VHS’DVD player that appears to have automatic tracking. I may try hooking that up as input with problem tapes to see if it adjusts the tracking during play if there is a shift. I have found that the tracking control on the combo recorder does not seem to work if done during recording. (I’ve seen other posts on the forum mentioning this.)

7. Expectations It would be easy for me to get caught up in obsessing over the absolutely best most perfectly recorded and presented DVD in the whole world, with spiffy menus, and chapter marks (thumbnails of course) exactly corresponding to start of scenes. I started down that road with the first couple of DVDs that I transferred. I came to another conclusion after assessing what I really want out of this project. While an attractive menu page would be nice, what I really want to do is facilitate watching my collection. While chapter marks that were keyed to the start of scenes were a nice idea, I was willing to go with automatically generated time interval chapter marks so I could move quickly through the story if I wanted. While all of my tapes were carefully stored and titles listed and collected, I seldom actually watched any of the tapes. Why? Not because I didn’t want to see the movie, but because it was a pain to drag out the carton, find the tape, put the carton back, etc. Additionally, the cartons of tapes were taking up one half of a large closet that I wanted to put to other use. To be able to reduce all these cartons down to fraction of the size with the added advantage of easy access to actually watch them – well that’s what I’m after. Do I really care that when recording a movie I advertently let the recording run over and the start of some other story ends up on the same DVD? Yes, I do. But not all that much. After all, I’ve lived with multiple stories on a tape for a long time. It’s not that big a deal to me. Or if it is, I’ll live with it. I consider it a tradeoff toward a speedy (is that possible?) conclusion to this project.

8. I know that combination DVD/VHS recorders are not popular here, and forgive me if this question has been asked and answered, but…is the quality of a DVD recorded on a combo unit comparable to the quality of a DVD recorded on a straight recorder, assuming all the other factors are the same. If not, is there a great difference or only slight? I am thinking about the Toshiba that I have been using. As I said before, it is still under warranty but has had some problems already. The rewind problem has reoccurred. This has been less of a problem as I have been using my Panasonic mainly for input or I babysit the Toshiba and stop the VCR from rewinding.

9. I admit that I am still puzzled on this issue of filters. Since VHS is essentially dead, there are no new copy protection schemes for VHS that need to be investigated. One might think that any filters that are available now would have been tested on all copy protection formats. It seems to me that the recorder itself should not be a part of the equation in solving this problem as it is the output from the filter that should be consistent. (I freely admit that I am not an expert as to how the copy protection works.) Is it that all these happy users of these devices are just glad to get a copy and don’t care about shifting light beams (like the one I saw) or is it that they didn’t actually get the shifting light beam (or other manifestations)?

Meanwhile I have finished approximately 150 DVDs so far.

Following up some of your new questions:

The reason combo decks are not so popular here is that the ones available since 2007 have been pretty junky. The mfrs have had an extremely hard time integrating ATSC digital tuning with timer recording, and these defects are compounded when they add a VHS deck to the mix. So in an overall way, the combos are too flaky and unreliable. Then, the VHS portion is usually just not up to snuff compared to a separate older VCR (even a "cheapo" vcr) and integration with the DVD section is very poor (the "one touch copy" feature is anything but). Finally, the combos are extremely limited in both editing options and recording speeds compared to the slightly older (or current import) model DVD/HDD recorders. In terms of recorded DVD quality, they can be very good, it isn't the video performance but the unreliability and inflexibility factors that make combos a sub-par solution.

On the issue of filters, again you have a combination of factors. Any difficulties we had backing up protected tapes to tape are magnified when backing up protected tapes to DVD. If you were not terribly picky, filtered tape copies of protected tapes were passable, but if you looked closely you could see various artifacts related to the protection not being 100% filtered out (very few filters get rid of the whole thing- analog is a bitch). Being analog and "lossy" in nature, tapes could hide these defects much better than DVD can. In order to make DVD transfers, the VHS has to be encoded to digital first, and the encoding process does not handle weak unstable filtered signals too well. The first two generations of DVD recorder and PC boards were godawful at encoding normal VHS and even worse at protected, filtered VHS- it wasn't until 2005 that the circuits evolved sufficiently to cope.

With the best hardware and filtering, flaws in the encoding still can be randomly visible because every single protected VHS had a slightly different signal version, so each tape interacts with the filters in a different way. Many get filtered well enough to be near-perfect, others show occasional bleed-throughs of the protection process. To make a long story short, analog VHS protection was a nasty, constantly worsening scheme and too much of a moving target for any individual filter to completely clean up. Your rarer protected tapes that may not be replaceable with commercial DVD releases can certainly be backed up successfully, but you may have some unpleasant video impact from the filtering. Normal tapes recorded from off-air or cable will be more consistent and easy to transfer.

I've spent the last couple years on the mission you have: to clear my house of mountains of VHS and replace them all with DVD transfers that can all fit in a small corner of my living space. To that end, I initially went with your current thought: just copy the damn things over quickly, using a combo, and forget cutting commercials and adding custom chapters. After a few months I realized there really is no significant time savings from doing the task sloppily, it takes about the same amount of time to do a really nice job of it but only if you drop the combo and go for a DVD/HDD recorder instead. It is very hard to describe how the HDD feature makes a DVD recorder an order of magnitude more useful and easy for VHS transfers: like many here, I didn't think tthe HDD was "worth it", I thought it was just an "indulgence"- until I tried my first DVD/HDD recorder. As it happened, I was able to get an excellent price for a used Pioneer with HDD which was otherwise identical to a non-HDD Pioneer I'd had for a year. The difference was night and day.

Things that are annoying or tedious to do without a hard drive become easy as pie. No longer are you restricted to non-archival RW media for editing, no longer must you deal with a kludgy "create chapter around commercial/hide chapter/but commercial is still there on the disc claiming capacity and quality" editing system. With a Pioneer 460, Panasonic EH-67 or Magnavox H2160 you record your tape to the hard drive first. Once its on there, you edit freely with no restrictions: cutting out commercials is a snap, because you use a dedicated "erase section" mode to click on the beginning of the break, click on the end, then click delete. Done. Quick. Easy. Your video can then be copied from hard drive to a normal archival DVD-R at lossless high speed (about ten mins). Picking a thumbnail or placing custom chapters before burning the DVD is equally easy.

Possibly the greatest benefit of the hard drive is you can optimize bitrate/recording quality before you actually burn the DVD. Say you have a TV series on tape that runs one hour per episode. Without an HDD, you are stuck recording two episodes per DVD at SP, wasting a lot of disc space on the commercials (even if they're "hidden"). With HDD, you can guestimate how long an episode runs minus the commercials (today its usually 42 mins), and set the HDD to record at a speed that would fit three or four episodes on a DVD. In other words, instead of recording four hours at SP speed, which would take up two DVDs and be wasteful, you can set the recorder to a 160 minute speed. Once you strip the commercials off the hard drive, you'll have only 160 mins to put on the DVD, optimizing storage and quality.

All of this is subjective, of course: you may just feel in your particular situation you would be satisfied with straight-across VHS to DVD dubs, no editing, no tinkering, because it seems to make the task go quicker. I felt the same way: my first setup was a bank of 10 second-hand JVC combo recorders that I thought would knock off my collection in no time. It didn't work out that way, I quickly realized I'd made a huge mistake because each tape was different, I had to keep futzing with do-overs, I was wasting way too many blank discs, and started to feel really cheated that I was putting all this effort in only to get generic DVDs without so much as a thumbnail on them. And it really bugged me that I was preserving commercials I hated for posterity (granted some of the really dated lame ones I do set aside for nostalgia laughs). Once I tried the DVD/HDD concept I was hooked, its the home video dream machine. It takes two hours to dupe a VHS tape anyway, with the HDD and a few more minutes you can create a really polished DVD that makes the effort truly rewarding.

Thats my take on it, anyway. Someone who has hundreds of tapes to transfer has to choose a recorder more in tune with that task. A combo is fine for casual use, and is about the only way to get an integrated ATSC tuner for off-air recording. But for heavy tape dubbing? A Pioneer or Panasonic with HDD will make you grin ear to ear. Add a $20 external ATSC tuner and your VCR, and you'll have an up-to-date system thats way more reliable than any combo and capable of dual-duty off-air and tape work. (The Magnavox is the exception to the rule: it is the only current recorder with both HDD and integrated ATSC tuner timer).

CitiBear,

Thank you for your clear explanation of the benefits of the HDD. So far, most of what I have recorded has been either purchased tapes or things I copied from either PBS or cable without commercials (although I did begin with some commercial TV). It's true I do have some TV episodes (not many), but they are at the end of my queue as I am recording the movies and longer items first and have been concentrating on the most recently recorded (tracking problems on those are virtually nil). Some of the things I recorded on VHS I have no intention of copying - just not interested. Some things, however, I have discovered are extremely rare - some PBS stuff that never made it to DVD.

If I had known about the HDD before purchasing the Toshiba, most likely I would have gone in that direction. Unfortunately, money for me is really tight right now and I am not sure that I can justify the extra expense. I will do some online investigation to see if I can get a bargain.

I am relieved to know that the recording quality on the combo units is not the reason for the negative feelings. I have been giving my Toshiba quite a workout so far and the results have been good.

Thanks to all of you who are so willing to share your experience and ideas with me. I wish I had found this forum before I started.

In case you want to read my experience with my Toshiba 660, here is my thread: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1149753

If you are under the 1 year warranty you might want to have that rewind fixed. Their customer service number at 1-800-631-3811 resulted in mine being so defective they upgraded me to a 670 cause 660s are not available.

The other thing I wanted to mention is you talk about tracking problems with the VHS tapes. I found what really helps me on that is whether it is an old tape that has been sitting around not played or even one I have decided to dub to a DVD, the first thing I do is start at the beginning and FF to the end and then rewind it..you can do this in any VCR if your 660 rewind has a problem. It is a way to unpack the tape and I find this has eliminated a lot of tracking problems for me. I do record on one brand recorder and may play in a different one so whenever I forget and don't do the unpack, the tape may remind as I try to watch it and it needs "help".

My 660 dubbed an old tape to a DVD just fine for me (one I had recorded off the TV), and on my 32" LCD, it looks just the same as it did on my old 27" analog TV.

Anyway, see if the unpacking idea helps your tapes not to have a tracking problem in the middle.

Hope this helps.

the words are too long, i don't have patience to read them.

What a coincidence! The rest of us find your blatant software commercial so obnoxious, we don't have the patience to read it, either! If you want to annoy people and pimp for software, try doing it in the correct place- this thread was started by someone who doesn't want to use a PC to transfer their tapes. Not exactly your target audience.:rolleyes:

What a coincidence! The rest of us find your blatant software commercial so obnoxious, we don't have the patience to read it, either! If you want to annoy people and pimp for software, try doing it in the correct place- this thread was started by someone who doesn't want to use a PC to transfer their tapes. Not exactly your target audience.:rolleyes:

I looked at that software thinking oh, neat.....wrong. I realized I can do all that in about 1/4 of the steps merely by interfacing my PC to my PIO and in plain english. I can do the same using them seperately. All one needs is any of the hundereds of video convertors available FREE on the internet and a stand alone DVD recorder and one in the PC.
Looking at that program it gets inot stuff 98% of the folks will never use and some of it is complicated in that it does not show the full picture (no pun intended). Part of the time your relying solely on weird numbers with this software.

In case you want to read my experience with my Toshiba 660, here is my thread: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1149753


The other thing I wanted to mention is you talk about tracking problems with the VHS tapes. I found what really helps me on that is whether it is an old tape that has been sitting around not played or even one I have decided to dub to a DVD, the first thing I do is start at the beginning and FF to the end and then rewind it..you can do this in any VCR. It is a way to unpack the tape and I find this has eliminated a lot of tracking problems for me. I do record on one brand recorder and may play in a different one so whenever I forget and don't do the unpack, the tape may remind as I try to watch it and it needs "help".


Hope this helps.

Good point! I have been caught by this little "gotcha" myself more than once. Yes, that trick does work 98% of the time and therefore worth doing.

If you want to annoy people and pimp for software, try doing it in the correct place- this thread was started by someone who doesn't want to use a PC to transfer their tapes. Not exactly your target audience.:rolleyes:

Just click on the little red triangle in the lower left corner of the spam post. The mods are usually quick to react to spam posts:)
I reported this persons 5 posts, all with the same link to the software. They were this persons only posts and all happened today(within 3 minutes of joining). I'm not sure how he got past the post minimum to post a link, all the posts contain the same link.

Hehe, as far as i know ,video quality when using a video stabilizer is heavily dependent on your DVD recorder and i heard about a lot of weird things that can happen to video when video stabilizer is applied. Anyway you should keep trying other stabilizers untill you find one that fit's for your recorder.