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Preserving VHS Recordings For Another 20 Years?
efedora asks: "I have about 650 hours of VHS tape going back about 20 years (no, not my porn collection) and the tape is starting to deteriorate. What are the best options for preserving the contents? Quality is important but not critical, so long as it's close to the original. Very low labor cost/time and simple operation. are important. Is there an easy way to do this?"
"Some of the ideas I've had so far are:
- VHS to VHS tape with an analog 'clean up' box between the VHS machines. This would give me the same number of tapes but should last another 20 years. Quality will degrade.
- Burn DVD's direct from VHS tape. I have software that will do this. Expensive and the DVD's won't even hold a VHS tape if it's 2 hours long. Good quality with no degradation.
- Burn VCD's. I don't know of any simple direct-to-VCD software that will do this so there would be a large labor overhead. Good quality with some degradation. Cheap.
- VHS direct to cheap IDE drives. Good quality with no degradation. Relatively cheap. Probably could use the same technique as burn-to-dvd."
I've really found that getting a Pinacle Video-editting compatible card and software is helpful. I've converted the majority of my VHS collection to DVD for a relatively low price... WHich comes out to be less than I spent on all the VHS.
Buy an all-in-wonder card, hook up your VCR to the video in, and you're on your way.
You can pick up an 80 gig drive for very little money these days, so just divx the video up.
Should cost less than 200 bucks, maybe more if you really want to preserve every pixel of visual integrity.
How about the recently made Ars Technica Guide to Capturing, Cleaning, & Compressing Video? It was made with exactly what you want to do in mind.
Plenty of compaines will put them on DVD for you and go thru the process of cleanup..
Sure its not cheap.. but your time is worth something and 650 hours of stuff would take forever...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
As the subject says. The card just doesn't work for more than 10 minutes. Value edition, feh.
Otherwise this is a really good idea, I thought about doing it myself. I was trying to record the simpsons but my whole system just froze up. Tried all the drivers, different video cards, not worth it.
My boss purchased a unit which has VHS and a DVD burner on it for around $600. Very high quality recordings too. He found it in an electronics catalog or something, he talks a lot though so I don't remember the specifics.
Nothing I'm sure Google can't help you with.
The List of Grievances with Slashdot.
Stick with well known formats that have a future.
DIVX, XVID etc.. could easily be forgotten in 20 years time, DVD and MPEG2 probably won't be.
I don't know how great the quality of this device is, but you can get a Terapin VCD recorder. Has Audio/Video inputs as well as RF/coax input. Link to webstite:
http://www.terapintech.com/
Panasonic DVD Recorder .. I bought one of these bad boys at their original retail of $700... still well worth it. At $400, only a few months later, it's practically a steal. Media's still fairly expensive, about $3-$12 per disc, in singles.. though I haven't looked around too much for multi-packs.. I mostly have just been using 1 or 2 different DVD-RW discs with it...
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
if you capture 240 lines you are effectively throwing away half your vertical resolution.
Between the VCR and the capture card, second deck, etc, make sure you use a time base corrector. Don't trust the TBC supposedly built in to the VCR or capture card, get an external unit. Otherwise, audio sync problems will haunt you forever.
The broadcast video processor (also from b&h) is also useful for this application. I like to put it before the TBC.
Regards,
Mark
markrages@mlug.missouri.edu
I agree with the DVD idea. get one of these http://www.dvdrecorder.philips.com/
hook it up to your VCR. Most people are suggesting stupid solutions with Video cards and Video editing software which end up costing around the 600$ mark anyway so for this extra ease of use you cant go wrong. Hey and its Phillips a cool electronics company.
There is no god
If you picked low labour and time, try a ReplayTV. Hook up your vcr to your replay, click record on the replay, start vcr playback, come back 2 hours later. Then get DvArchive and stream the recorded show off the Replay onto your pc. The stream is an MPG2 format. Use VideoLan Client to view the stream. Archive as desired.
Have fun!
The fastest and easiest way would be to use a DVD recording deck. I have a Samsung (Panasonic) unit that works just like a VCR. Decent quality too, much better than your VHS tape and it's very fast and easy!
I've consulted for video applications for a while now, and I found the best solution is:
* Relatively fast PC - Athlon XP1800+ or faster roughly.
* Decent video in card - ATI All-In-Wonder Card (even the non-Radeon AIWs are good for this).
* Good DVD Burner - Pioneer DVR-105 or DVR-A05 that burns DVD-R. Don't worry about the +/- debate, -R media is cheaper and has virtually the same compatibility as +R.
* Easy software - Sonic MyDVD is great software that you can capture from and burn to DVD in one app. Plus, if you buy the A05 above it usually comes with this software in a bundle.
* (the trick) Solid long-lasting archival media - Mitsui Gold Archive DVD-R for longevity.
I cannot stress the last one enough. It's so easy to get a great system only to flounder on the choice of media because the goal is to keep the videos. The best DVD-R media generally are Mitsui, Verbatim, and TDK. I wouldn't trust anything else. Just capture in 640x480, and you can burn up to two hours at a time. If you want to get really fancy, you can delve into more advanced software, cut bitrates to get additional time, and do ultra slick menus.
You CAN store more than 2 hours of video on a DVD, just create the videos
in VCD format (MPEG-1 video), and store them on a DVD disk. This will give
you around 7 and a half hours of video per DVD.
As you are converting from VHS, the quality has probably already degraded to
the point where using a codec that captures the full PAL or NTSC signal is not
really warranted.
One of the new VIVO capable ATI or NVidia graphics cards will suffice for
capturing the video files (they usuaully come with simple video capture software).
Then I'd recommend using TMPG Enc http://www.tmpgenc.net/ to encode the files.
http://jesus.everdense.com/
miniDV is a horrible option. Anyone who suggests that hasn't really worked with the format much. It's great for camcorders but not archival of this volume.
You DO need a good deck. I use an upper-end JVC S-VHS deck with integrated comb, genlock, and digital buffer to stabilize. The importance of a clean incoming signal CANNOT be overstated. Garbage in, garbage out and bandwidth wasted. S-Video is important because it delivers a far higher quality image. Composite video mushes parts of the signal together.
For the bulk of my straight archival I use an Athlon-based system with USB2 connected to an ADS USB Instant DVD MPEG-2 encoder and an iMic USB sounde device.
USB2 is important because you need lots of available bandwidth. The iMic uses the same AD/DA chip as some of teh pro Roland devices. Doing the sound grab outside the computer's case helps cut down on noise. (Yes, I use a USB extension and the iMic is "housed" near the VCR.
Some people prefer the Snazzi USB encoders. I found the ADS, factory refurbished, at TigerDirect for $150. hard to find a hardware capture at that price.
I've also got a Canon DV camcorder with passthrough and an ATi All-in-Wonder. Neither is a good solution. DV is HUGE compared to the quality of the source and any cheap capture card has poor performance. If you want to spend $1K for a Canopus, well, that's a different story...
For plain-vanilla VHS and S-VHS you're going to be just fine if you use CVD which is half DVD resolution and is compatible with the DVD spec.
Which leads to storage medium. You can burn CVDs to CDR if you want. It's cheap because, at least in the U.S., you can find CDRs for full rebate a lot and the drives also. Right now, if you're lucky, you'll find both at OfficeMax.com. Alternately, got to DVD.
Now, a word about bitrates: Your comment that a DVD can't hold 2 hours is incorrect. Sounds like you tried and captured at too high a data rate for your source.
If you're willing to re-compress, you can easily use various clean-up filters and get at least as good an image as you have on tape, putting 3.5-4 hours per disc in CVD format on a DVDR. That's not a typo. If you properly use filters the result of cleanup on onld VHS source can be better than the raw version. There are filters specifically to deal with the various colorswim and dropouts of magnetic tape.
For a list of links and info on hacking the ADS capture device:
utils@mindspring.com
A/V Utils for the Masses!!!
Curator of links at
http://shelob.mordor.net/dgraft/
For info on the iMic:
http://griffintechnology.com
The charge in flash memory cells leaks out over time; the bits aren't permanent. The archival properties of flash aren't fully known, but the Intel parts are designed for a lifespan of only ten years, about like magnetic media.
- Comes out looking better due to Time code correction
- DVD will hold 2:20 at the next-to-best setting. I can't tell the difference, and some DVDs can't even deal with a higher bitrate.
- Record up to 6 hours at a time, then cut it into multiple files. Stick in the tape and walk away.
- Use the Hard drive to edit, pull out commercials, then burn to DVD.
Panasonic DMR-HS2. $800 online, $1000 retail. Only downsides are that you really can't do chapters, and that it'll drop in price."Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
"The Philips DVDR-985 will copy DVDs, VHS tapes, TV shows, VCDs, audio music CDs, and more onto DVD+R and DVD+RW discs. Then, it can be played back on DVD players and on your DVD-ROM [computer] drive.
With this DVD recorder, you can record using video-in (RCA), s-video, or firewire (lEEE1394) connections. It also has a built-in TV tuner for your convenience.
The most compatible of all recorders, the recorded discs (DVD+R and DVD+RW) can be played on more than 90% of all DVD players and on DVD-ROM computer drives. Also, with DVD+RW, you can erase the recorded disc and re-record onto it again for thousands of times.
There are four recording modes: DV quality (1hr ), DVD (2hr), S-Video (3hr), and VHS (4hr).
As an added feature, the DVDR-985 will also play play CD-R, CD-RW, SVCD, DVD-R, DVD+RW, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD, and VCDs.
And like most stand-alone DVD recorders, the Philips DVDR-985 is as easy to use as a VCR."
Easy , just not as cheap as you would like to go, bout 700 bucks but i'm sure you can find a better deal as i spent only 4 seconds looking.
Whats better than clubbin' baby seals?... Absolutely nothin!!! -Zero Wing
As a library science student I have learned that there is not yet a reliable archival medium materials like this. About the only thing I can think of is film, but that's clearly not an option here. Continually changing formats and technology have made being a librarian very complicated. This stuff is fragile to boot, and its shelf life is dubious. An instructor said that he only expected his DVD to last five years.
If your content is non-personal, you may consider outsourcing. Companies like Vidipax (link withheld to avoid spam accusations) offer such services which would save you some time.
(Score:-1, Wrong)
-Any Dazzle products. Especially the DVC-80. The price is right but this piece of trash is so terrible that it does not even belong in the trash. The FireWire DV Bridge is decent, but it has severe problems with slightly unregulated power source. And the only thing worse than dazzle products is dazzle tech support.
-Pinnacle Products. Sometimes they work with excellent results. But they are very unpredictable, with often buggy software and whacked out compatibility problems. If you are starting out and don't have an existing video conversion infrastructure, avoid these things!
-Adaptec VideOh. It looks good in the surface but I have heard reports of these things acting in a very whacked out fashion.
So what do you get? Check out the card list at www.vcdhelp.com which has a huge list of products with many user ratings which tend to be quite reliable. The best products for converting your VHS to digital format in the lower price range that actually work tend to be the Matrox devices as well as the Canopus ADVC-100. From personal experience, I can say that the canopus (~US$300) kicks serious ass, and I have converted several VHS tapes to VCD with its help. The output from these into the computer can be sent to VCD, SVCD, DVD, etc.
Also check out rec.video.desktop which is a low-spam, well populated newsgroup with people who deal with this kind of stuff a lot. I read it regularly.
I recall seeing a TV news item on this as well.
As I recall the processing technique did contrast and edge definition enhancement based upon movement within the frame. Items that moved frame to frame became clearer and sharper. Stationary objects did not improve, making this ideal for surveillance cameras.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
You know, this whole 352x240 == VHS resolution is such a farse. First, NTSC signals are analog, which means there is virtually infinite horizontal resolution. It's well known that NTSC has 525 lines, which is 262.5 lines per field. Most VCRs are specced at 260lines of resolution, but because they don't have any concept of pixels, it's largely based on the quality of the unit. There are many factors that influence the quality of the recording. Honestly, 720x540 is the minimum acceptable digital analogue of the NTSC spec.
The biggest problem with the analog to digital conversion is that most units do not convert the interlaced input into a progressive format before recording. Because of this the effective resolution of the digital copy is much degraded. If you want a semi-reasonable dub, you need to perform progressive conversion before downsampling the resolution. You will notice that many PVRs do this, I know that my Replay does.
The other problem with encoding to digital is the loss of the interframe data. There are 21 lines of information that contains things like captions and program data. These are not preserved by the traditional conversion process. This is where the PVRs get it right again. They will store the data in the interframe area.
The bottom line is that 1GB per hour of video is the bare minimum quality. 3GB per hour is better, realtime is closer to 4.5GB per hour. You need about 5-6Mbps encoding rate in MPEG to get decent video. 9Mbps is what Superbit is IIRC.
I'll step off my soapbox now...
The problem with "converting it to DVD" is that what you probably REALLY mean is "converting it to DVD-R" ... and, say what you want, but I haven't actually seen much evidence that says a piece of DVD-R media is going to last any longer than a VHS tape. Those in the know say you want to be really careful about scratching it, and especially about exposing it to light.
... even the DVD-ROM drive on my old PowerBook G3 won't read it.
There's plenty of DVD players on the market that don't support it, besides
DVD-R is a nice development, but it's yet to prove itself as a viable archival format, IMHO.
Breakfast served all day!
Breakfast served all day!
I won't compromise on media any more. If I'm just casually copying something for someone, I might have a spindle of cheapies, but you need archival-rated media if you want it to last any length of time.
This is the solution I use. I bought a Leadtek WinFast TV2000 PCI Video Capture card for $29.95. Then made a trip to Radio Shack for the necessary RCA cables. You'll need one male RCA to male RCA for the video and another dual male RCA to headphone jack for your sound card. The cables were about $15.00 for both. So, for less than $50 bucks, you have a solution in place for transferring VHS to a digital format. The cool thing about the Leadtek card is that it includes software that lets you choose the format you want to use. The options are MPEG-1, MPEG-2, NTSC VCD, PAL VCD, DVD, or AVI. It also syncs the audio for you, so you avoid that very time-consuming task of ripping video and audio separately and then having to synch them up again.
The main thing is getting the VHS tapes converted in some fashion to your hard drive. Then, you really have many choices on how to proceed. I bought a Plextor DVD+R/W drive because I wanted the maximum compatibility with home DVD players. DVD-R is OK, but not quite as reliable as DVD+R, in my experience.
But a DVD burner is not an absolute requirement if you decide to burn SVCD or VCDs. You can use regular CD-R's which play in most home DVD players. I choose DVD+R just to cut down on the number of discs necessary to transfer a standard VHS tape.
Most people are suggesting stupid solutions with Video cards and Video editing software
I agree.
Okay. I used to work in a TV station.
DVD is the big thing right now, but history has proven that formats with meteoric rises (as in, DVD went from nowhere to everywhere in four years) is that they have meteoric falls. Case in point: 8-Track tape.
Every day, someone builds a shorter wavelength blue laser, and someone else builds a better compression algorithm, or even a better copy-prevention scheme. How long until the DVD format is revamped or replaced? Will the new players play the old discs?
VHS was introduced in about 1977, and home VCRs didn't achieve anywhere near the market penetration of the DVD player for 15 years. CD players took almost 10 years to achieve ubiquity.
Here's what's done at TV stations. We store the tape carefully. That's it, that's all. Now, TV stations buy good tape and use good video formats (ie. no crap like VHS with its ridiculous tape wear). The average VTR in a TV station is in the range of $10,000.
The video is saved in a tape format which will be around in 20 years. You can still find an Ampex Quad machine to play nearly 50 year old tape; almost every large city will have at least one in a video production house or tape archive.
Local stations tend to run Betacam SP or Digital Betacam. The investment in video formats is huge, most TV stations will stick with whatever format they chose for years after it became obsolete.
As recently as 1993, I was carrying around an Ikegami camera and a 40 pound Sony BVU-110 3/4" VTR handing off my shoulder. The battery belt for the VTR and the sun gun was another 20 pounds. Meanwhile, the bigger stations in my area were all running around with single-piece Sony Betacam ENG setups.
Interestingly, there's one video format that you can take anywhere in the world, and any TV station or production house can use it: 3/4". Razor sharp analog pictures, very little generational loss, good and fast tape speed. It's Beta's big brother, but it's old now, so the tape and the machines can be found used all over the place.
Why not pick up a 3/4" deck? You don't need anything fancy, just make sure it will take the full-size (not just portable) 3/4" cassettes. The tape is cheap enough, the machine will last forever, and you won't be able to visibly see any image degredation from VHS. Hell, if the stuff was recorded 20 years ago, the VTRs at the TV station you were recording were probably 3/4". Look for a 25-year-old "U-Matic" machine, preferably from Sony (popular enough to be easy to service), top-loading is fine. Record a couple of DVDs to it - if it's working properly, most people could never tell the difference. Newer U-Matic SP machines are even better. Watch out for the machines which are player-only, and for the ENG machines which only take the small cassettes. (3/4" cassettes come in two physical sizes, but the full-size machines will play both sizes.)
Tape storage - this applies for all formats, including the lowly VHS:
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Most of the suggestions I saw are to put the video on to some sort of rotational media. Disk drives, or DVD are the two most common offerings.
There's one thing I think that history has show us is that rotational media go obsolete quite quickly, and when they do the technologies to play them quickly disappear from the marketplace. If you go this route, you will also need to archive the entire playing system, not just the media. In that vein, the TiVo idea is perhaps your best bet. Ex: if you performed this project 15 years ago, you would likely have used MFM or RLL drives, now you can't buy them, their controllers or cables, and I don't think modern hardware or OSes would even know what to do with them.
Tape has a much longer life-span in the consumer marketplace. Without too much difficulty, one can still purchase an open reel tape deck, an 8 track or cassette player. Try finding a phonograph that plays 78rpm records though. It's damned near impossible.
I fear CDs and DVDs will get the same treatment. Once the next thing replaces them, their players will disappear from the market. and locating one in 15 years may prove difficult. For instance, once we get enough bandwidth, video on demand may get us to all toss out our DVD players and disks.
I think the best compromise you can make is to use MiniDV. Especially if you have a compatible camcorder or deck already.
The benefits are:
1. No problems dealing with time-code transcoding or creep
2. No audio sync problems
3. Digital storage on tape. Later generations will not suffer degradation
4. Easily imported to computer for duplication or storage on other media (back to VHS for example)
5. If similar to other tape formats, will endure longer than most rotational media of its generation
6. You can fit two hours of VHS tape on to an 80 minute MiniDV if you use EP; which on MOST devices yields no degradation of video or audio. I personally have not encountered any more dropouts from EP than from SP on any of four devices I've used.
I might even import the video from MiniDV to computer, perform some enhancements (sharpness, color, contrast) then write it back out to MiniDV. Then write back out to VHS so you can watch the video on a regular basis. You don't want to use your digital master tape for regular viewing.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
Oh for fucks sake would you freaking idiots stop it with this "infinite analog" bullshit. The NTSC standard allocates 4.2Mhz of bandwidth for the colour signal which works out to 450 "pixels" of horizontal resolution.
Read this.
I am seeing all these messages saying, use MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 because DivX won't be around in 5 years, but MPEG-1 and 2 are standards, blah blah blah.
.avi's, instead of putting them inside a proper .mp4 container (which is based on QuickTime, and FULLY documented)
...And in the end, isn't this the point of having open standards in the first place?
I put this to you: DivX 5.03, 3ivx D4 and above, XviD, Apple MPEG-4 and most of the other MPEG-4 variants are actually fully MPEG-4 compliant, and MPEG-4 is as much of a standard as MPEG-1 or 2 is. MS-MPEG is another thing all together, as is DivX 3.11. Avoid these.
The worst part of this MPEG-4 hodge podge is that everybody stuffs them into
Basically if it's MPEG-4 compliant, there will be some way to play it in the future, as surely as you can play MPEG-1 or 2.
I think we all know that there will be better formats in the future. No question about it and the wait won't be long.
The question of format type for software (MPEG 2/4, DiVX, whatever), is a good point, but starting with the most lossless format possible will help maintain maximum quality with any needed conversions later.
Besides, your average MPEG2, even at a medium bitrate, is overkill for old VHS material. We're not talking about anything more than 240 lines of resolution (on a good day), after all.
Ah, but what about the media itself? Well... So what if that DVD-R doesn't store beyond 5-10 years? If the digital transfer process has been done at a point where the VHS is still viable, this won't matter much. A few years after the transfer, go ahead and copy your DVD-R
s to your new Blu-Ray discs. You should be able to fit about 10 DVD-Rs each, if I remember correctly.
Then 10 years later transfer ALL of it to Holocube or whatever.
I do video archiving for the school I work for, and this is my stated plan. We use DVD-R because it's cheap, and when properly stored should last until the 'Next Big Thing'.
I would be more worried about VHS analog degradation than digital format obsolesence for one reason: time of transfer. How long will it take to transfer a two hour VHS tape? Yup. 2 hours. How many tapes does this guy have? How long will this take? How long should he wait - this material is DYING in front of him!
How long will it take to copy a DVD? Hmmm. Depends on what year you're talking about doesn't it? 10 years from now, you'll probably be able to copy your entire library of material in mere minutes! You can have copies of the copies; no loss in quality, plenty of redundancy.
That's a very real advantage. With analog there is continual loss (more if the tapes are actually played). the longer you wait to convert the material, the more video will be distorted. With digital, it's already converted and then it's just a factor of time for file copying.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Just some precisions from the resident astrophysicist :-)
1.) Yes, true, UV damages dies.
2.) The solar spectrum is a blackbody curve that peaks in the green, visible; incandesceng light will typically peak in the red, visible--so yes the sun will send more UV.
3.) Most hard UV is absorbed by the atmosphere, we only get UV-A, UV-B, UV-C on earth, which are closest to visible light;this is why UV telescopes are in space.
4.) Some windows are specifically designed to stop UV, but most windows will let UV through (most of it anyways).
yours ever, fz.
From a physics point of view, I'd be very wary about baking tapes. Certainly don't do it at home.
Let's not forget that tapes are a magnetic medium. All magnetic media have a temperature (the Curie point) at which they will suddenly demagnetize. Now I don't know what that temperature is for tapes, but it's often not that high.
Additionally information on magnetic media degrades faster at a higher temperature. This is because the way information is stored is basically as an alternating sequence of magnetic domains (areas of the same polarity). With time, large domains grow at the expense of small domains, basically smoothing out the information. Turning up the heat just makes this happen faster.
You can't beat entropy.
The author of this post asserts his moral rights.
As in perhaps a "Kitchen Sync" found for the amiga video toaster circa late 1980s?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&i
I honestly don't know the cost of time base correctors, but this was a spiffy option in the 20th century.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.