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Digitizing VHS tapes...need help cataloging/tagging

B

budha

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 5, 2008
72
0
USA
Hello everyone.

At my job, we have a lot of old news clips on VHS tapes. We want to digitize them, and catalog them in case we ever need them for presentations, videos, etc.

We bought the Elgato Video capture, and now we are looking for a good way to tag them and put them in some type of either database or other structure where we can label them properly. Does anyone have any tips/suggestions on this?

Thanks!
 
Are you storing these video captures as DV streams, or are you transcoding to something like mpeg-4/h.264?

If you are compressing them to mp4, then one simple solution would be to use MetaX to tag them and then use iTunes as a database so you can search for them and recall the clips as needed. Or you could easily create a database to do the same job.

At the higher end, you could use something like the Dublin Core metadata schema and XML to tag the video.

If you don't apply metadata directly to the video, then make sure you develop a good filename structure and use a database to keep track of all the clips.
 
Spice,

Elgato compresses them into mpeg4 quicktimes. (mp4)

When we search, we'd like to be able to do a bunch of different terms like:

year, genre (of the news story), location, etc

Thanks!
 
If you will be using these clips in the future then I would highly recommend that you not transcode them to mp4. Use a product that does not automatically do this (I have a Canopus box that produces excellent results, but there are others). The problem with keeping them in a delivery codec like mp4 is that a) it is a lossy form of compression, and b) you can't edit the clips without transcoding them back again. There is already going to be some picture quality degradation associated with the fact that they are stored on VHS and you are capturing the stream. You don't want to make it any worse.

After that, create a database using something like Filemaker Pro with the fields you need. This will help you keep track of all the clips. You could use Bento to make it even easier, but Bento is not designed for multi-user environments.
 
These clips are originating as analogue video, right? So there wouldn't be transcoding from DV to MPEG-4, just capturing straight into H.264 or MPEG-4.
 
Komiksulo said:
These clips are originating as analogue video, right? So there wouldn't be transcoding from DV to MPEG-4, just capturing straight into H.264 or MPEG-4.
Click to expand...

Well, what I'm saying is to use a device that captures and saves the DV stream, which is a better format to keep valuable footage in than mpeg-4.
 
Thanks everyone for the comments. I think in the interest of space, my managers would prefer the smaller files. Slight degradation I think will be ok.

Lethal, have you used CatDV before? I'm on the website and it looks pretty interesting.

Thanks!
 
budha said:
Hello everyone.

At my job, we have a lot of old news clips on VHS tapes. We want to digitize them, and catalog them in case we ever need them for presentations, videos, etc.

We bought the Elgato Video capture, and now we are looking for a good way to tag them and put them in some type of either database or other structure where we can label them properly. Does anyone have any tips/suggestions on this?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

I used a Canopus A110 + a professional VCR deck (Panasonic AG-1980) to digitize my home movies, etc. Once edited in FCP, I then converted them to MP4 and cataloged them in iTunes along with the rest of my audio/video collection (movies, tv shows, music) and along with photos, I can view/listen to all of it around the entire house using Apple TV (for audio/video) + Airport Express (audio only) units. They can also play on other hardware devices as well (still disappointed that XBMC doesn't support chapter and meta data for M4V, though and it doesn't make sense since clearly that information is available out there as MetaX and Handbrake use it). I could have converted the video to any format, though.
 
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