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 NLE for analogue VHS ... and for
32 pounds?
Tim Hanitszch found a way.
Huh?
Being webmaster is sometimes pretty amazing.
It was double-take time. I had an email about computer editing of VHS
material! Then the author mentioned the cost and it was triple-take
time. But let Tim explain:
I really wanted to go down the DV route but cost was prohibitive, so after
much research and chatting to people on line I plunged straight into desk
top editing by digitising analogue VHS. I achieved a modest set-up which
allows me to capture full-screen VHS at 29.97 frames per second (which is
lossless), edit, add effects, dub sound etc... and re-code to near VHS quality
(the final file being a minuscule 6MB/min) for the total sum of...... 32
pounds!
Instead of editing deck to deck on VHS, I can do as much digital editing,
effects, transitions, sound dub etc... as other people who have spent over
100 times that amount - most of whom will bounce down to VHS for public
distribution/viewing anyway. Don't get me wrong - one day I'll go down
that route, and I'll be able to apply all the post production skills I am
learning now.
But - er - is it worth it?
I had the DV versus VHS Desk Top Video debate with someone a few nights
ago, so to prove a point I recorded a 30 second advert from TV (Digital TV,
recorded on a 6 head VHS machine on a brand new cassette). Then I captured
the video of the advert in full screen lossless codec (Huffyuv) at some 380+MB
and recorded that back to the video after the TV advert. I then
encoded the file with DivX MPEG-4 (with all the filtering settings)
and put that back onto VHS. Finally I played the three versions back
to back...and they had to agree that the final version (at 2.6MB) looked
BETTER than the one recorded straight from TV !
OK - How do you do it?
Well a lot of people ask me that so in the end I converted my tattered
scruffy penned notes into an HTML file and uploaded to my website.
I am no technical geek but after lots of playing around, web searching
and lots of advice taking I stumbled across the method outlined in my web
page - which works for me and fortunately the last computer I knocked together
has a dual head function so I can output back to VHS.
The guide can also be used by DV users to archive their films onto CD-R
without the limitations of creating VCD's or SVCD's.
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