VHS to DVD

[Barbara Pearson]

Dear InfoChildes,

A *very* long time ago I asked for advice on how to transfer
our VHS archive to digital form.  Our criteria for the end
product were as follows:

	1. they could be played on a computer or a TV;
	2. they could be further edited.
	3.  there was some editing to do on the original tapes.

(That is, the  original tapes contained several
children on each tape, and each child's
videos were distributed on several tapes.
The tapes were shot with average video camcorders of
the mid-1990s in available space in the children's public
schools, so quality was uneven.  Also, all of the
subject children were African American and without
careful lighting, some of their faces were too dark to
see easily.  Therefore, we needed to be able to do
minimal editing during the process.)

	4. Originally, I wanted to put all of a child's separate
sessions into one file, but I abandoned that as less
practical for the end-user.
	5. We had a relatively new MAC G4 that could be devoted
to the process.

Several people responded to me privately, and of course
Brian has the helpful resources on the Childes website.
http://www.talkbank.org/dv/

After a lot of trial and error, some unnecessary investments,
and many computer crashes, we moved the project to a
PC-Pentium IV outfitted with a 140 gb external hard-drive,
a DVD burner, and the programs mentioned below in the
schematic of the process.  Now that we have a system, and are
nearing completion of the project, what we do seems pretty
simple.  Given the relatively "crude" end-product, it's
hard to see what was so hard, but of course, it was.

Here is the basic outline of what we ended up doing.
(Those who want more detail can ask for our lab directions,
but those are pretty specific to our electronics and
our file systems, etc.)
I'm *sure* there are other ways to do this, but this fits
our equipment and the level of sophistication of our
workers (and me).

UMASS NIH LAB VIDEO ARCHIVE PROJECT
(THE EASY SPEEDY WAY)
Wj/bp 6-6-04

THERE ARE 5 STEPS TO THE PROCESS:
1.	Dub the tape in PCTV (to an .avi file)
2.	Clip the avi in Virtual Dub.
3.	(Adjust lighting, if necessary in Movie Maker)
4.	Convert avi to an mpg file (in Tempenc)
5.	Transfer to final storage medium (with NERO)

Step 1 happens in real time; steps 3 and 4 take about 2x real-time;
and transfer to a storage medium can take about 10-12 minutes
for each Gig.  So this process, exclusive of time to fiddle with
the file, takes a minimum of 3 1/2 and sometimes 5 1/2 times
the length of the tape to be archived.  I found it much easier to
do on a PC than a MAC.  (Things should have worked on the
MAC, but it routinely crashed or software programs did not
present all the advertised options.)  Once the project was started,
the challenge was to keep clearing enough space on our two
hard-drives to accommodate the intermediate steps.  We ended
up getting a DVD burner for intermediate back-ups, but that’s
another long-ish step too.

Once again, I am happy to send our more detailed
lab instructions, if they can be helpful to anyone.

I apologize if I did not acknowledge everyone's help, for which
I'm very grateful, before I lost track of their messages.
The response of the info-childes community was, as
ever, invaluable.

Thank you.

Barbara


*****************************************
Barbara Zurer Pearson, Ph. D.
Project Manager, Research Assistant
Dept. of Communication Disorders
University of Massachusetts
Amherst MA 01003

413.545.5023
fax: 545.0803

bpearson at comdis.umass.edu
http://www.umass.edu/aae/
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