We Got Served - The Windows Home Server Site

Have you ever heard of VHS tapes?  It’s only been 5 years since the DVD became more popular than VHS tapes, but it did not take long for those tapes to disappear from the movie rental/retail shelves.  But this post is not about commercial VHS tapes.  It is about all those “home” movies that will be gone forever, if you do not do something with them.  After all, VHS tapes do not last forever, and… do you even have a VCR plugged into your home entertainment system any more?  We do, but that is only for those VHS movies my wife has in our lower level family room.  She does daycare and they come in handy once in while to keep her charges occupied.

Last winter, one of our daughters was over at our home, and she and the wife “discovered” these tapes in a corner.  So off they went down nostalgia lane and watched those tapes.  Seizing the opportunity, I mentioned that I could copy them over to my computer, so that they would not be lost forever.  Hello TV tuner!

Enough about my home movies.

This is about your VHS home movies.  Do you want to preserve those special memories in a digital format on your home server?  Yes?  Great!  Once converted, you can then view them in your favorite movie player.  And/or, you can burn them to DVD, if you so desire.  And just to digress slightly, I wouldn’t recommend trying to convert any of your commercial VHS movies.  I did one just to see what it would look like, and it was bad.  VHS tapes are what I would term lo-fi.  Converting home movies to a digital format will not improve the quality, but it won’t make it any worse, either.  This is simply not true with commercial VHS movies.  If you really want that movie in digital format, buy the DVD.  A movie old enough to be released in a VHS format is probably pretty cheap these days.

What follows is what I did to copy my VHS tapes to my computer.  Please take note that I was not out to start a video conversion business.  I simply wanted to take the easiest (read: cheapest) route to my goal, which was to preserve those memories.

You will need some hardware before you do anything:

• A Computer.  I do have to mention the obvious!
• A video capture device, such as a Personal Video Recorder or a TV tuner.  If you do need to buy something, this is a good time get a TV tuner.  One that will handle both analog and digital signals would be preferable for future use.  In the U.S., I do not believe that you can even buy an analog-only tuner any more.
• A VCR or VHS player.  If yours is gone, you could always go down to your local Wal-Mart (U.S.), or equivalent budget store, and buy one.  For some reason, they are real cheap these days…
• RCA cables and adapters to complete the bridge between your VCR and your capture device.  The adapters are usually included with the device.
• A DVD burner.  This is optional.

You will also need some software:

• Video capture software.  This is usually included with your capture device.  I wasn’t impressed with the software that came with my tuner, so I used the Media Import component of Roxio Easy Media Creator.
• Video editing software.  Again, there will usually be something included with the capture device.  In my case, I found Windows Movie Maker to work quite well for my needs.  It is also free, as it is included as part of the Windows installation.
• Viewing software.  Windows Movie Maker, Windows Media Player, Windows Media Center (MCE 2005, Vista Home Premium or Ultimate) are programs that are included with Windows.

And finally, you will need to locate those tapes you want to convert.  You are now ready (almost) to begin the conversion process.  You will need to take that hardware and hook it all together.  I assume that you have already installed the video capture device, so let’s hook up that VCR.

The TV tuner card in my computer is an AVerMedia AVerTV Combo PCIe MCE card.  It is a PCI-Express x1 card, which to me was a plus, and it was certified for use with Vista, which was a huge plus. When I was researching TV tuner cards, there were not many out there at the time with Vista certs.  I read several posts about the problems associated with older tuner devices and Vista.  So this was an important feature to me.  If you use Windows XP, you have a multitude of choices.  Of course, you will need to locate a tuner that supports the transmission standards in your country, if you go the tuner route.

This card includes adapters for the video and audio signals.  If you are using a single-purpose Personal Video Recorder, these devices quite often terminate in RCA jacks, thus allowing a direct RCA cable connection between your VCR and the recorder.

On the other end, you will need a VCR, along with the RCA cables.

Simply plug the adapters in end of the RCA cable and…

The other end of those cable into the VCR.  I know, pretty basic stuff here.

Plug the end with the adapters into your capture device.

Turn on the VCR, pop in your VHS tape, and fire up your video capture software.  As I mentioned earlier, I am using Roxio Creator 9 Home.  Under the Video menu, start the Capture Video program.

BTW, there really is a tape being recorded here.  The Print Screen simply does not capture it.

Once you are in the Video Capture program, click on the Video Tab.  Select your capture device and set your capture settings.  I used the DVD HQ setting, as it provides the best quality capture.  After that, things get quite simple.  Hit the VCR play button, click on the Capture Now button, and sit back and relax.  It really is that simple.  Except for one little detail.  This is a real-time conversion.  If your tape is 2 hours long, your capture time will be 2 hours.  After all, this is not a professional video conversion service.  Remember, I did say sit back and relax.

Once the tape has been captured, click on the same button that now says “Stop Capture”.  The capture is saved and ready to be edited.  Roxio saves the captured video in mpg format.  These files can get quite large and are difficult to work with.  Windows Media Player did a horrible job of playing these videos.  Opening these files in Windows Movie Maker was not a problem, however.  I am not big into video editing, but I found Windows Movie Maker quite easy to edit my videos.

Locate the Windows Movie Maker program in the Start Menu, start it, click on the Import Media icon, and import your captured VHS video.  An icon of the video appears in the upper left of the middle window.  Using the left mouse button, drag this icon down to the video strip.

We are now at a point where I will have to let you explore the various features of Windows Movie Maker.  You can cut the video into several segments, add subtitles, sound, and any other cool effects you desire.  This is exploration time for you to discover what WMM can do to preserve that memory for you.  Once you are done editing a segment, click on the Publish Movie option under the File menu item.

You’re done!  Unless you want to create a DVD.  I did make a DVD of one just to see if it worked.  In my case, I wanted them on my computer, so that was just a trial to make sure I could.

I used the MYDVD Express component of Roxio to add the clips I wanted and then burned them to DVD.

This conversion process sounds rather simple.  It was, once I figured out what worked with the tools I had available to me.  When I first started this conversion process, I was looking for the ONE program that did it all for me.  I quickly found out that this program did not exist, at least with the programs I had access to.  From there, it took a lot of trial and error to figure out what programs I had that might work.  I then had to figure out what programs actually did work.  In the end, was it worth it?  Well, let me put this way.  I’m sure I will have a tear or two in my eyes when I watch them again in another 10 years.  Home movies may seem corny, but they really are a Blast From the Past when the moment strikes and you rediscover those old movies of your kids.  When they really were kids.

If you have old home movies you want to preserve, what has been presented above is my journey of “how to” do this.  I’m sure there are other methods, some better, some perhaps not.  In the end, I hope I have lessened the learning curve needed to accomplish this.