[QUOTE=ttimx;1873143]I went through the process of converting a bunch of old PAL VHS to NTSC DVD a few months ago and spent allot of time trying to figure out how to do it. Here is what finally worked for me:
First you need a VHS player that will play the PAL format. It does not have to also play NTSC or convert to NTSC as the capture card can do that, but it must play PAL. If it does do the conversion, leave that option off and play it in PAL as your PC can do a much cleaner conversion than your VHS player.
Secondly you need a capture card. I bought a few well-known cards including Hauppauge and Pinnacle and returned all of them because they did not perform this function adequately. The card I eventually bought that delivered superb results was the ATI TV Wonder card. A side benefit is that you also get to watch TV on your PC with this card. It will also accept PAL input. The only downside to the ATI card is that the included capture/editing software is awful and I do not recommend using it.
Thirdly you need capture and editing software. My favourite software for this is Power Director. Be sure to try the demos of software before you buy/download it as some of the programs will not work for you depending on your hardware and skill level.
Note: this process is quite heavy on system resources so you will need a fairly fast PC to do the capture and conversion process. Otherwise you will get “dropped frames†where the PC cannot keep up and loses frames from the movie.
Now you are ready to start the capture process. Connect the AV cables from your VHS player to the capture card input. Open the capture software, select the input device, check all the settings, press play and begin the capture process.
The best way to do this is to use the same app to capture and burn a DVD in one process. Otherwise you will end up with a HUGE (±40 gig) file on your PC that you will need to convert and burn.
This process takes allot of time and your investment in hardware and software will be $150 to $200. You will also need to be fairly computer literate so set it all up.
If you have less than 5 tapes it will be cheaper and easier to get it done by a professional. You can search online for these services.
Good Luck![/QUOTE]
Hello all,
I live in Florida now and also have a large collection of PAL VHS tapes.
I have converted a few with disappointing results so far. I am going to try doing the PAL to NTSC conversion on the PC instead of externally.
This is how I have been doing it.
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Play the tape in a Panasonic AG-W1 VCR (which is a multi-standard) with output set to NTSC.
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Feeding the composite output into an NTSC Sony DCR-HC96 camcorder docking station. The camcorder converts AV input to DV output. Unfortunately the NTSC HC96 will not handle PAL video. Only the PAL model is capable, and to buy a second one is expensive. Anyone have one for sale cheap?
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The DV output is fed via a firewire cable to a 1394 card on the PC and captured using Adobe Premier Pro 1.5 software.
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After capture, the “clip” can be edited, chapter markers and titles can be added, then burned to a DVD.
However the results are less than desirable. I get better results playing the tapes directly to my NTSC Sony 40XBR4 TV.
I am going to try your suggested method and let the PC take care of the conversion by outputting from the VCR in PAL, bypassing the HCR96. The only downside I see to this is I will not be able to use the DV 1394 card, and will not be able to capture using Adobe Premier Pro. But if the results are better, I will have gained, not lost.
Regards to all.
PS, I would like to hear from the originator of the thread as to how he made out.