VHS to DVD

[atm711]

I am finally going to transfer my tapes to DVD and I am wondering if I will have problems with copyrighted material. Most of my tapes are copies of other tapes (which might be copyrighted...I don't know) and I never had a problem making another taped copy. While looking at one DVD/VCR recorder today; clearly stated on the box was that it would not transfer copyrighted material. For those of you who have successfully transferred your tapes to DVD---have you run into any problems where the machine would not accept the transfer? Please excuse my muddled inquiry but I have been reading about DVD/VCR recorders on Amazon for a good part of the day....

[Giannina]

I've been waiting for someone to post a reply here. I've transferred tons of tapes to DVD without knowing what the heck I'm doing or why. This is all the info I can give you on your question. There are some tapes that will not transfer; they're made that way and I don't know if it's a copyright issue or not. They are the vast minority.

There's a whole new issue about DVD's coming to the fore, like the VHS/Beta issue with tapes. It's been in the works for a long time and I don't know when the decision will be made. It could end up that everything I've transferred to DVD's will no longer be used and that a new process will come out. It's been discussed on the board so maybe you can find it in the archives. I've saved all the tapes after transferring them, just in case.

In spite of all the above I'm very happy with my transferred tapes. The quality of the new DVD is virtually the same as the tape. Since you have to play the tape to transfer it it's an opportunity to watch tapes you haven't seen in a long time; that was the most fun of all!

Giannina

[Joseph]

Hey ATM-

I spent a lot of time last year transferring tapes to DVD. As I understand it, there are no copyright issues with the actual transferring process. However, some of my tapes (some of the Kultur ones actually) would not transfer over and I think this is because they may have put a block on it. I too transferred a lot of tapes from tapes that had been copied from commerical releases and the quality is just the same.

I did in fact get rid of my tapes though because I was moving and it really created a lot of clutter. The tapes I could not transfer I still have and am planning on just getting them on DVD when each is released.

Basically, if it doesn't transfer then there is an issue, so hold on to it - otherwise do not worry about any issues with it. (I am of course speaking solely of ballet related tapes.) In terms of movie pictures, I am not sure - I litereally got rid of all my commerically released vhs picture movies.

[Paul Parish]

let me add to what Joseph says --

If you REALLY care about the tape, don't throw it away. Dvds (like CDs) are strangely vulnerable things -- a scratch or a warp can make them go comletely blank and lose everything forever. Something to do with hte magnetic matrix. DVDs, I've been warned, are NOT reliable archiving formats.

Or so I've read -- I've never had it happen to me. Indeed this may be an urban folktale -- but I've been warned about it several times already myself.

[richard53dog]

let me add to what Joseph says --

If you REALLY care about the tape, don't throw it away. Dvds (like CDs) are strangely vulnerable things -- a scratch or a warp can make them go comletely blank and lose everything forever. Something to do with hte magnetic matrix. DVDs, I've been warned, are NOT reliable archiving formats.

Or so I've read -- I've never had it happen to me. Indeed this may be an urban folktale -- but I've been warned about it several times already myself.

Paul and Joseph's advise is sound. Pressed CDs and DVDs are vulnerable to a few odd problems (back a few years there was an issue called "bronzing" that made CDs unplayable) Don't know if there are any new trends along this line.

CDRs and DVDRs are far more vulnerable than their pressed counterparts. The recording surface is also softer than on the pressed items and more easily scratched or marred.

So far I haven't had an DVDRs go bad other than scratches but I've had a LOT of CDRs become unplayable after 2-3 years.

It seems to be the ones that have the "skins" that are most unstable. Generally individual tracks go back rather than the whole disc.

Also other wierd things can happen. I took a CDR out of a paper sleeve yesterday and it stuck slightly. When it came loose a bit of the magnetic material stayed stuck to the sleeve. I didn't try to play but assume

that's now material for the trash can.

So by all means transfer the tape to DVD. But if it is a favorite , keep the tape as backup. Not to sound like the voice of doom here, but while VHS tapes last a long time, they have to be stored carefully. Otherwise the tape deteriorates and the leads can dry out. And wind and rewind them occasionally.

Richard

[atm711]

Ballet Talk to the rescue again Thanks for all your replies and encouragement.

[Marc Haegeman]

There also seems to be a huge difference in quality of the DVD-R family - depending of the country where they were fabricated, the label that issues them, the color of the disc, the format DVD-R or +R or DVD-RW or DVD-RW.... There isn't a general rule to guarantee the so-called "lifelong enjoyment", but best is to stick to the big labels and to avoid cheap outlet spindles of the next supermarket or coffee brand. Problem is that these mainstream optical discs are presented as long-term storage devices while in fact they are only suitable for temporary viewing. Some national TV archives store their film material on servers or digital tape, and use DVD's only for viewing purposes.

Moreover, to complicate matters further, the lifetime of the DVD-R's is allegedly variable depending of whether they've been burned with a stand-alone DVD-recorder, or with a computer (again depending of the burning software, the burner etc). As Richard already mentioned, if we can take CD-R's as an example than we might be in trouble with DVD-R's burned with the computer. I too have CD-R's of hardly five years old which are already deteriorated to the point of becoming unplayable: no scratches or dirt or anything (and they were perfectly allright in the beginning) just plain and simple deterioration of the material (I guess we could call it sort of "precocious metal fatigue"…)

Also a good rule seems to be not to write on your DVD-R’s (even with those specially created pens…) and avoid labelling them on the surface (the glue will disintegrate with time as well and destroy the information…).

Copyright protected tapes is only a minor issue, it seems…

[atm711]

Your reply could have not been more timely. My husband is in the process of transfering over 3,000 vacation slides to DVD (via the computer) and he is having second thoughts.

[Joseph]

And you could just make sure you make two copies of each DVD; it may take a bit longer, but will be nice to have a backup copy stored somewhere just in case.

Interesting about the labels, Marc, I didn't think of that!

[Marc Haegeman]

Your reply could have not been more timely. My husband is in the process of transfering over 3,000 vacation slides to DVD (via the computer) and he is having second thoughts.

Frankly atm711, I don't see any reason why you should not embark on it, if you are happy with the results, but you only need to remember that you are not using the perfect, lifetime-lasting, troublefree medium. And make sure to use DVD-recordables, not the rewritables.

The idea of a double copy is a sound one, if only you check the results after you burned them, and do repeat that check-up every year or so to see if all the information is still there. And after a few years you should consider making a new copy (something which, I'll be the first to admit, nobody ever does...)

[chrisk217]

A lot of info on class of blank media, dvd brands/makers and how to detect problems before you write a disk can be found in this page:

http://digitalfaq.com/media/dvdmedia.htm

How to handle dvds (from the Digital Data Preservation Program)

http://www.itl.nist.gov/div895/carefordisc/disccare.html

Everything you want (or dont want) to know on the subject of DVDs can be found in the DVD-FAQ:

http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html

[richard53dog]

A lot of info on class of blank media, dvd brands/makers and how to detect problems before you write a disk can be found in this page:

http://digitalfaq.com/media/dvdmedia.htm

How to handle dvds (from the Digital Data Preservation Program)

http://www.itl.nist.gov/div895/carefordisc/disccare.html

Everything you want (or dont want) to know on the subject of DVDs can be found in the DVD-FAQ:

http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html

Good info chrisk217!

You know what frustrates me? Trying to figure out if the problem is the DVDR or the player. I played part of a DVDR and then wanted to compare it to another so I took the first one out, put the second one in, played it a bit. Then I put the first one back in. "incompatable format" What??????

What did I do? Take the imcompatable disc (that had played 20 minutes earlier) and copied it. My player was happy with the copy and played it. Crazy.

Richard

[tylerls]

As I understand it, there are no copyright issues with the actual transferring process. However, some of my tapes (some of the Kultur ones actually) would not transfer over and I think this is because they may have put a block on it.

Some commercial tapes have copy protection on them, to deliberately prevent anyone from duplicating the tape. Essentially, the recording has some deviations from a pure, standard, video signal, which are propagated through to the recording device by the VCR which is playing the tape. These deviations are usually enough to prevent the recording device from getting a good copy. Sometimes you might lose "vertical hold", or the colours cycle from bright to dark, when you play the copy. A TV ignores all the copy protection signals, and shows the picture as normal if it's getting the signal straight from the player. I have heard of people who have had problems with their home theatre projectors, which couldn't even show an original copy of a copy-protected VHS/DVD recording.

I had a very early PAL video recorder which was "immune" to copy protection. (We bought it in 1980, I think, to record "Life on Earth" and "Cosmos".) I've always suspected that there was a conspiracy to add support for copy protection into all new video recorders later in the 80's.

MACROVISION was the/a pioneering force behind copy protection in video tapes, and you'll probably see their name in the fine print on the back of many of your DVDs today. DVDs are typically copy-protected, too -- If it says so on the cover, you probably couldn't play them on a DVD player and record them on your VCR with any more success than you're having with the video tapes. But, cheap Chinese DVD players often feature "macrovision removal" which means that they won't pass the evil signals through.

As a resident of Australia, I'm in a PAL region, not NTSC. But over here, we used to be able to buy little boxes which you could put between the player and the recorder to filter out the copy protection signals. I.E.

player ---cable---> "video stabiliser" ---cable---> recorder

When our 1980-vintage VCR eventually died, I made my own "video stabiliser" from a kit from Jaycar. Nowadays, I think you can still get PAL "video stabilisers" pre-built for much less than $100 AUD.

I would suggest that you google for "macrovision remover" or "video stabiliser", and you may find a tool which will help you. Make sure it's designed for your country's video standard. (NTSC for the U.S.A.)

Or, for more background information, search wikipedia for macrovision. The article may not sound too promising for many of you: The Digital Millenium Copyright Act may have outlawed the sale of the type of device I'm talking about in the U.S.A. Maybe you might still have luck finding one, if the device fulfils another purpose besides stripping off the copy protection signals. Some vendors might still be selling them with the defense that they also amplify the video signal. You might be able to D.I.Y. like I did, but you'd want previous experience with a soldering iron. (And not my elder brother's type of "experience", picking one up by the wrong end... Don't try that at home.)

Tyler.

[tylerls]

And you could just make sure you make two copies of each DVD; it may take a bit longer, but will be nice to have a backup copy stored somewhere just in case.

Absolutely.

For my best friends' wedding video, I copied the video tape onto a computer, and then from there I made multiple DVDs. But, just in case those DVDs all stop working at around the same time, I keep a copy of the computer file on three different computers, on their hard drives. If a computer/hard drive dies, I make sure I copy it onto the replacement computer/hard drive. And, not all of those computers are kept in the same location, so if they're all taken out at once, chances are that everybody's going to have a lot more to worry about than a wedding video!

I do the same sort of thing for all my digital photos. I have only one photo of myself below the age of about 20, most of the rest were destroyed, so I'm very protective of the photos I do have.