Capturing VHS with Premiere Elements version 3

[microhab]

Hi there,

I am looking for a solution to copying old VHS video tapes to my computer.

I want to be able to edit them in Premiere Elements version 3. Nothing too fancy at this stage, just deleting certain parts and adding a menu system.

What I am currently doing is copying the VHS tape to the hard disk of my DVD recorder, transferring this to DVD+RW, and then importing this footage into Elements for editing and subsequently burning to DVD.

I'm not sure if I am losing quality doing this (I suspect I may be) but I also have another problem with this method.

The DVD that I create from the hard disk in my DVD recorder can have several VOB files that get imported into Elements. Where the footage continues from the end of one VOB file to the beginning of the next, I loose a few seconds of sound. With some projects this is a real nuisance and I would like to find a better way.

So:

Would a better quality DVD/hard disc recorder still loose the sound at the end of the files?

Or would I be better using a separate piece of kit such as this or this or this.

I have got a capture card (Hauppauge Win TV-Express) in my computer but I just can't seem to get it to work when I connect a VHS player to it.

Any and all suggestions more than welcome.

regards

Brian

 

[Minkey]

I'm not sure if I am losing quality doing this (I suspect I may be) but I also have another problem with this method.

You shouldn't loose quality after all VHS is poor quality anyway

Would a better quality DVD/hard disc recorder still loose the sound at the end of the files?

I'm not sure why this is happening but it's certainly a long winded way around of doing it.

I have got a capture card (Hauppauge Win TV-Express) in my computer but I just can't seem to get it to work when I connect a VHS player to it.

I've got one of these it works fine with a TV source - using this to capture directly will be your easiest and best bet, though you will need a lot of disk space to capture video at a decent resolution.

What happens when you try a capture, it might be a macrovision protection issue. Is it ok with other video sources ? iirc WinTV defaults to NTSC settings.

Oh and welcome btw.

 

[microhab]

Hi, thanks for the welcome Minkey.

I accept that I will need a decent amount of disk space, what would you say a 2 hour video would take?

I have had another go with this Hauppauge card and just tried a short (1 min) capture. I can get the video but I have to go through Windows movie maker, then save the movie in WMV format and then load this into Premiere Elements. I cannot seem to get Premiere Elements to capture straight from the Hauppauge card.

Also I get no sound at all.

This is how I've got the video connected to the PC:

What do I need to do to record the sound?

regards

Brian

 

[Minkey]

Hi, thanks for the welcome Minkey.

I accept that I will need a decent amount of disk space, what would you say a 2 hour video would take?

This all depends on resolution and compression format. For a 2 hour video at PAL resolution 768x576 say using H.264 video and MPEG audio your looking at about 240gig however using XviD MPEG4 video codec it will be about 2.5gig experiment because some formats might not be compatible with Elements or you may need to download the appropriate codecs.

I cannot seem to get Premier Elements to capture straight from the Hauppauge card.

I've got Premier Pro and it doesn't recognise mine either, it doesn't seem to pick up all cards and the fact it's a software capture card doesn't help I think.

If you doing a lot of capturing it might be worth investing in a hardware capture card - it will be quicker and more compatible with Elements (have a quick search for compatible hardware and you should find one suitable)

Also I get no sound at all.

You should get an option to choose your audio recording input from Menu > Avi recording > Set audio format.

I have mine going through my main audio card rather than the Hauppauge one because to hear it on your PC the audio from the Hauppauge card needs to be looped back out, from the output on the right, into your audio card.

It should still capture audio OK even if you don't do this as long as your setting are correct but try that instead then select your sound card as the audio format from the menu. The added bonus is you can hear what your capturing, I have my TV feed going into the card so if I want to capture a bit of video I simply set the file location and hit record.