I have a few Mini DV Tapes, and I was wondering how can they be converted to VHS.
I am assuming I can play it through the camcorder and then record it at the same time in the VCR. Right?
Is there any other way? Are there professional who do it? And how much do they charge?
p.s: 
Making a Movie
Soo, you go on this really nice trip and you take a lot of digi pics and also make the movie for the whole trip. You would like to share it with your family and so it needs a bit of editing otherwise it will be too boring. How can you do that?
One convenient way would be to transfer it to the computer, edit it using some software that you can get under 50 bucks and then burn it onto a CD. Right? The problem with this approach are two... 1) You can't share it with family who is not up to the computer age & request something in VHS. 2) It looses part of resolution & clarity when you convert it onto the computer ... or so I have noticed through the camcorder I have.
Any suggestions?
I have an idea ...(a) transfer the movie over to the computer, (b) edit your movie, (c) then burn a CD that you can play it on your multi-format DVD player and then (d) while you are playing it, record it onto a VHS. Sounds doable? Problem 2 stated above will be there, though I am sure something is better than nothing.
Answer to your first post is relatively easy. Connect your camcorder to the VCR (newer models of VCR have AV sockets on the front). Play the movie in your camcorder. Then switch the TV channel to VCR (usually #3 or #4). Then grab VCR’s remote and change AV to where you have connected to the camcorder. If your VCR has both back and front AV inlets, then it will probably be AV2 where you will be able to view the movie on TV. Once you are able to view your home-movie on the TV, through this arrangement, then its as simple as popping in a new blank VHS into your VCR and press the record button. It will record the home movie to VCR.
There are professionals who will charge proly 10 bucks to convert the MiniDV’s to VHS. Check your local area Yellow pages. Or Click here to see a couple of vendors who may be able to help.
Re: Making a Movie
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*Originally posted by ahmadjee: *
2) It looses part of resolution & clarity when you convert it onto the computer ... or so I have noticed through the camcorder I have.
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Depends on which resolution you encode it. If you want almost TV-like quality, encode it at a high resolution. The file size will be huge, but if its a short home movie, as long as it can fit in a 750MB CD-R you will be ok.
Three more questions:
1) What is the size of the file in MBs (on your computer) relative to the time of movie & resolution. I understand low resolution, less file size for longer movies but there should be some base rule of thumb. Like for Digi Cams it's about a Meg of file size for 1600x1800 resolution (give or take a little) So, what's for digital camcorders say for 10 minutes of video?
2) If you don't have the IEEE 1394 hardware, is it cheaper to buy the actual hardware or a adapter/simulator type plug-in? If we opt for the adapter, will the processing (copying) speed go slow?
3) Recommended Software of PC Video editing?
Most VCD's are 320x280 pixels. Thats the fuzzy kinda quality you can see in the 50 rupee pirated movies bought from Pakistan. If you go progressively higher in pixels, you will see improvement in quality. However, you should know that your computer monitor and your tv screen are two different species. The pixels on the TV are different, so something which looks totally crappy on a computer screen (Full screen image of 320x280), will look tolerably passable on the tv screen. I don't think you need to go up to 1600x1200 to get good quality. Do some trial-and-error to see which quality you can live with. The low quality 320x280 gives a 2 minute clip, about 8-11 MB (I think).
I got myself a Firewire (IEEE 1394). It works fine. Dunno about the other.
I just use the bundled software which came with my Firewire card (uLead Studio Basic) to transfer movies to the computer and do some editing, dubbing etc. It saves it as an MPEG-2. From there, I use a who---me recommended free encoder from download.com to convert the movie to WMA format (which is really really compressed) but will only work on computers, and is good if you plan to share the file over the internet. So you can skip this step and just burn the movie to a CD to be played on a VCD player.
Check out CNet to see what software they recommend. I think Pinnacle Studio software came highly recommended by PC Magazine.
Hum .. interesting ...
I will have to see if my CD-burner will burn a VCD, none the less a WMA will do and my DVD claims to play the WMA so I will test that too. Once I am at the point of looking for a WMA decoder, I will give who---me or you a holler.
If I double the resolution, then proportionally a 2 minute vedio will be 20 MB. Which when compressed to WMA will come out to be what ... umm ... 5 MB?
How fast is the copying to the disk through Firewire? They claim to have 400MB/Sec ...
Burn a disk through the Firewire?? Errmm.. unless you have an external CD-RW, why would you burn a CD thru Firewire. My CD-RW is internal, so it burns at the speed of the drive. Typically 4x to 8x.
I use the Firewire to connect the camcorder to the PC, and its pretty fast. Almost the same as playing a video in a VCR. A bit slower, but not that much.
I mean copying to hard-disk (or the computer) ... :-p
WMA is audio only. It wont help you. Dont worry I was scammed on the same issue.
Being pissed off at VCD quality i'd : Just save the video as a high res WMV, and save it onto a cd as a .wmv file. Although family members cant watch it on tv, it's better quality than a vcd and it will allow a longer video.
If you MUST watch your videos on tv, the cheapest way to go is the : Firewire to PC, VCD to DVD Player, DVD Player to VHS. The quality might suck, but who cares its alot cheaper than the next method I tell you.
OR , you can spend a few thousand on an internal MiniDV writer/reader. With this you can edit your video on your pc, then save it back onto your minidv with equal quality. Then play it on your camcorder while recording on your vhs. High resolution , at a high price.
You can also investigate SVCDs. They have better quality than VCDs, but i would'nt waste the time researching.
a full mini dv should be around 800ish megs .. best quality
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*Originally posted by nomaan: *
a full mini dv should be around 800ish megs .. best quality
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800mb after being compressed. You can expect several gbs for when pulling the movie.