VHS to DV in iMovie 08 (UK) How?

[dirving]

I am looking to convert lots of home VHS movies into digital form (preferably not compressed, so that I can edit at the best quality in iMovie 08 on my Mac.)

What is the cheapest possible way of doing this (using products available in the UK?) I don't have a digital camcorder or a DVD recorder so I can't 'passthrough' using that.

I heard people can use Pinnacle's MovieBox DV version 9 on their Macs with no problem, but that has been discontinued, and its replacement makes no mention of Macs whatsoever. Can anyone confirm that it will (or won't) definitely be recognised as a camera by iMovie?

They have also released Video Capture for Mac, which apparently only records into compressed MPEG-4 and not directly into iMovie (or otherwise uncompressed DV). This is ridiculous!

I have heard of things like EyeTV and products by Miglia but they are not cheap and I haven't heard of anyone using them with iMovie. I received a Windows-only DVD Xpress DX2 for Christmas, much to my frustration. I even tried to use it in Parallels, without any luck.

Can anyone help and suggest a product I should buy? Thanks in advance,

Dominic.

 

[SteveG4Cube]

http://www.smartdv.co.uk/product.php/123/11/

 

[therubberduckie]

I bought the Pinnacle Studio movieBox plus (it is version 10 or 11) to use with iMovie and could not get it to work. I was searching for a better option when I came across this post and just thought I'd warn you NOT!!! to buy the pinnacle boxes.

 

[dirving]

Thanks! I have ordered the Canopus ADVC-55, and will let you know when it arrives and if it works as expected.

 

[Allstermac]

I just started looking and the mac store recommends eye tv
has passthru and you can watch and record tv



http://store.apple.com/Apple/WebObj..._mac/mac_accessories/video_devices&nplm=TK658

 

[ftaok]

I just started looking and the mac store recommends eye tv
has passthru and you can watch and record tv



http://store.apple.com/Apple/WebObj..._mac/mac_accessories/video_devices&nplm=TK658

That will work, but the OP specifically said that he wanted something that results in uncompressed files. While all of the DV devices will have compression, it's miles ahead of the compression used by the EyeTV devices (typically MPEG-2 or MPEG-4).

Personally, i have no experience with the Pinacle or Canopus. I was thinking about getting a Canopus 110 because of the s-video input, but in the end, I use my miniDV camcorder. Decent results from my Sony HiDef DVR using composite. The only thing is that the color is a little washed out.

ft

 

[chaboard]

I really like the Canopus. But I have the opposite problem from the poster...all my stuff comes in DV but I want to archive it in a form that has more manageable file sizes. On the PC, my capture device defaulted to a an MPEG4 setting that had nice quality. Now that I've switched to Mac I'm stuck with these ENORMOUS DV files. I have Quicktime Pro but am getting really tired of experimenting with settings.....can someone tell me what settings I should try to convert the DV and save it off in a roughly DVD-quality file?

 

[RedTomato]

I really like the Canopus. But I have the opposite problem from the poster...all my stuff comes in DV but I want to archive it in a form that has more manageable file sizes. On the PC, my capture device defaulted to a an MPEG4 setting that had nice quality. Now that I've switched to Mac I'm stuck with these ENORMOUS DV files. I have Quicktime Pro but am getting really tired of experimenting with settings.....can someone tell me what settings I should try to convert the DV and save it off in a roughly DVD-quality file?

1. Import to iMovie, do a quick bit of editing if you want.

2. In iMovie, Share (or Export) to iDVD

3. In iDVD, either save straight to DVD or fiddle a bit first if you want. If you want to save the same file to several DVDs, burn a DVD image, not an actual DVD.

OR

1. Open file in Quicktime, and

2. File > Export...

3. In the Export window, select Export: Movie to MPEG-4 and click on Options

4. Select File Format: MP4 (not ISMA), and Video Format: H.264, and Image Size: SD or HD.

5 Change Data rate to about 2000 or 3000, depending on what file size you want. Look in the box for a summary of file size.

Lots more info here:

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/tutorials/h264.html

 

[dcv]

Elgato EyeTV 200 or 250 will allow you to hook up a VHS recorder to your mac and you then record the videos using EyeTV software. Records as MPEG-2 format but from there you can export it to whatever format you like.