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I have a quite a few VHS tapes. I would like to copy them to the computer and then burn them on to DVDs.

Anyone done this? What do I need to make this happen?

easiest would be to just buy a dvdr/vcr combo unit...no pc needed. you could then use that as a dvdr w/ your tv as well.

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That would be the least painful way. Otherwise you need a video capture card of some kind (and quality varies greatly). I use a DV camcorder connected to a firewire port as my capture device. It's FAR better quality than most sub $200 video capture cards.

You need some kind of video capture application like Ulead's Video Studio (most reasonably priced). I use Sonic Foundry's Vegas Video, but that's a VERY expensive application (I have friends in the video editing business).

Depending on the app you use you need a lot of free disk space. If your app captures directly to MPEG2 you need around 4gb for 1 hour of video. If it captures in RAW AVI then you need 10 TIMES that much. Needs to be on an NTFS partition also - FAT32 is limited to 2Gb file size max.

Then you need PATIENCE. Even basic video editing demands a lot of patience. Then rendering,authoring and burning your DVD can take hours, so it's best to have a dedicated computer for video work (as I do) or just do it overnight.

Needless to say you need a DVD burner.

i forgot to ask if the VHS tapes you are copying are movies (i.e. macrovision protected) or homemade movies (i.e. pr0n, etc)

if copy protected then the set-top units won't work since the macrovision will mess up the transfer. then you'll have to get fancy like FP said.

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I never copy retail stuff - it's all personal crap.

You will run into problems if it's retail videos. Any VHS player made in recent memory has copy guard and you'll either get terrible jitter or the picture will fade in and out if you try to copy it.

Crap. Something told me that this was not going to be easy.

The VHS's I spoke of are education VHS's (we have a library of them at work, they are drug/alcohol education VHS's). I figured I would try to put them all on DVD's to make them last longer. Probably a lot them are macrovision protected since our company bought them all.

Define a "video capture card". I was thinking I could hook up the VHS to my vid card but I guess I'm backwards there (video card hookups are out and not in)? I also have a TV Tuner card that can capture TV broadcasts. Dunno if that qualifies or not.

Then I knew there would have to be software involved. I do have a DVD burner with good burning software. Actually my friend (co worker) has the burner. He's got that burner software that the Courts made the manufacturer stop making (although I believe they are still making updates for it), forgot the name of it.

Your TV tuner card, or a video card with video capture will suffice, but most of them are low-quality 320x280 resolution. Image will be rather grainy. You usually need to spend $100+ on a capture card to get good quality. The think to look for is a minimum of 640x480 (ideally 720x480 for the proper aspect ratio).

As for macrovision, you'll just have to try it and see if it works. Educational videos may or may not have them. The expensive ones usually do.

I'd recommend you try copying from one VHS to another first and see if there's any copy guard by-products (jittery image, image fades in and out). If so, I wouldn't bother wasting time with DVDs.

You can try out a test with your TV tuner card, even if it's low quaility, just to try it out. Download a free 30 day trial of a DVD authoring program. There's lots of them. MyDVD, Ulead Video Studio, etc.

I can recommend Ulead Video Studio because it captures in MPEG2 which saves a LOT of hard drive space for the temp files.

i asked this question awhile ago and i believe i may have found an answer on e bay, i ordered a video stabilizer box for $70 to use with my adaptec card. if your interested ill let you know how it works out when i get it.

This plus http://www.ss3f.com/ilo/ will probably get you what you want, you won't even have to crack open your computer. Whats nice is once you burn the disks with the DVR you can rip them on your computer as you would a normal DVD and edit it if you choose.

Are there people who will do that for you?

Our family has many VERY old real to real movies from the '30s, etc and it'd be nice to have them transferred to (now) DVD as it's a pain trying to run those on an old movie projector and sometimes those tend to "eat" old film too.
I have an older 8mm movie camera so I've made a few tapes (and no, not pron) but I'm not sure that it's worth spending much money to buy new equipment just to transfer a few old VHS tapes. Any VHS movies on tape have such bad video quality compared to DVD that those aren't worth transfering (like trying to transfer old record albums to CD), I'll just replace the movie instead.

Yes, plenty of places that will transfer them to DVD for you. Ask around at photography shops.

I'll have to look into that. Thanks