Videotape movies (old VHS) into FCE

Is there an easy way to capture VHS videotape images from the old tapes into FCE for editing please?
I have a few sections from older movies that I'd like to incorporate into a current project in FCE4. Can it be done? I have tried placing the movie camera in front of the TV or the projected images on the screen from the multimedia projector, but the quality is quite poor (understandably). The focus, audio, brightness and keystone effects are issues.
Any advice please? Thank you. Keith

Hi
My list on this topic.
*Analog to Mac/Digital*
From
• S-VHS, VHS, VHS-C - Camera or VCR (VHS-C needs adaptor cassette)
• Video 8, Hi8
Can be done via
• Camera and tape or video trough function (if present) (miniDV or Digital8)
• A/D-box - Several brands (Must be FireWire)
............Canopus ADVC-55 (now Grass Valley ADVC-55) - (only on way)
............Canopus ADVC-110 (now Grass Valley ADVC-110) - (two ways)
............Canopus ADVC-300 (now Grass Valley ADVC-300) - (Timebase/code-correction)
............Elgato EyeTV
• VCR --> DVD
Captured/Imported by
• iMovie 1 to HD6
• iMovie’08 & 09 & 11
• FinalCut Express or Pro
• QuickTime Pro
• iDVD
SCART - Must use an SCART-adaptor with in and out switch. The one that came with Camera is one way. Camera ----> VCR/TV - not other way around. (common connector in EU - not in US)
Why
• Want to do a DVDs (then avoid iMovie'08 or 09 or 11 - due to quality loss)
• Want to edit
Connect VCR to A/D-box via SCART---RCA (EU) and RCA---RCA (US) and set SCART switch to out. The A/D-box may have an in resp. out side. Connect to in-side. Set A/D-box Input selector to Analog in.
My ADVC-300 has two sets of dip-switches on bottom - for PAL they are set to
Left one number 6 is set to on - all others in off state.
If 6 in off state then it is NTSC
From A/D-box via FireWire 6-pin to 6-pin or 9-pin end to Mac FW port.
Now turn A/D-box or Camera ON
Start iMovie or QT or FinalCut
Select Import or Capture
Re-wind tape in VCR or Camera
Start - Play on VCR or Camera
Import or Capture Now
See that the saved movie is collected on a hard disk with sufficient space
1 hour needs 13.5Gb
8 hour needs 105-110Gb (eg a 240VHS tape recorded in LP-mode)
How to store the material
• As is - Icon with a Star on it (iMovie HD6)
• As a set of DVDs
• Collected in a folder - FinalCuts Scratch folders + Movie document on an external/second hard disk
• As DiskImages
• Back to miniDV tapes
Do not use LP-mode with miniDV tapes. Two major problems.
a. When Camera dies - so does the tapes - Can’t be playbacked securely on other Cameras even if
brand and type number is the same - tolerances is to small
b. Audio goes out of sync due to 12-bit recording and/or drop outs in video makes video and audio
not walk in pace/parallell. Resulting in a very tough re-sync problem.
Yours Bengt W

Similar Messages

Mail automatically moves old messages into a new folder.

Hi,
I noticed today that Mail automatically created a new folder called Aug2009 and moved all my old messages from my Inbox into that folder. How do I stop it from doing that? I would like to be able to see and search through ALL my mail at once, not just one month at a time.
Thanks for your help
-Patrick

Greetings,
Sounds like you have a Rule setup to do that, since it's not something Mail would do all by itself. Look in Preferences > Rules for that and if you see it, delete it; then move the messages back to your Inbox.

Getting old vhs stuff into FCE or iMovie

I have an older Sony mini-dv camera. Not sure if I can dump some old vhs stuff to a dv tape, then import as normal.
So, I have a vhs-to-dvd standalone machine. If I burn a dvd of the vhs copy, is there a way to turn it into DV format? I'm not worried about quality at all, so that's not an issue. Could I use Handbrake for example to rip the DVD contents to my mac...then somehow convert the video_ts folder into another format?
Any suggestions?

Hello,
If your Sony miniDV camcorder has analog video+audio input you can copy your VHS tapes to miniDV and then import the resulting tape into FCE. While this is a more labor intensive process you will get much better quality than burning your VHS to DVD and then converting the DVD to DV.
On the other hand, if you burn a DVD of your VHS video with your VHS+DVD machine you can probably convert it to DV on your Mac. Rather than Handbrake, I'd suggest MPEG Streamclip which is free and works great. (Note: if you don't already have the QuickTime MPEG2 Playback Component on your Mac, you'll need to purchase it from Apple (currently $19.99 & downloadable)).
The one thing you should be aware of, however is some of those VHS+DVD units write some code on the DVDs that makes it hard if not impossible to digitally capture the video from the DVD. Check the documentation for your VHS+DVD machine.

I'm looking for software for my iMac to use to copy old VHS movies onto DVD and old records (digital turn table) in CDs. Recommendations please?

I'm looking for software for my iMAC to use to copy old VHS movies from a VCR into DVDs and records from my digital turn table into CDs. Any recommendations?

For the VHS movies, try googling Elgato - they make a number of USB devices that are supposed to be able to do this, but check what formatting options they offer : you will want a device that converts directly into .MOV files (to play in QuickTime), or into H.264 for iTunes / iPods, etc.
As for the vinyl records - first you need a device that will convert the analogue output (phono) into a digital form and will connect via FireWire or USB. The Griffin iMic is one such USB device (if still available?). From there you can use the free Audacity download to read in the signal and convert to a suitable format, e.g. MP3. (You will need to use SysPrefs / Sound to switch to an external audio device, instead of your Mac's built-in mic.)
(Wait - you said "digital turntable" - software already on your Mac? How do you use a virtual turntable to play vinyl?? Unless what you really mean is an analogue turntable that has a CD writer in it, or a USB connection to connect the turntable's DAC output to a computer?? In which case, either use your turntable to burn CDs, or connect via USB and the free Audacity software to convert the signal to music tracks and output as MP3.

Copying old VHS tapes via Director's Cut box into iMovie '08

Hi all, I'm trying to copy some old VHS home movies via a Director's Cut digitizer box into iMovie '08.
As the tape plays from the VHS player, the picture in the import window freezes every few seconds and then restarts, with the import timer resetting (in the top right of the window)? It's almost as if the digitizer box or iMovie is picking up some old editing codes and doing its own scene selections. Sometimes it does it after only a few seconds, other times it will go for a minute or so.
After it has processed the old tape, when you're in preview playback, fractions of the picture and sound are missing where it's done this odd "cutting". Any ideas?
Thanks

-Power everything off.
-Make sure all your connections are correct: a/v from your VCR to the Miglia ... FW from the Miglia to your iMac. Make sure the Miglia is the ONLY FireWire device connected to your iMac. No other FireWire devices should be connected.
-Turn on the Miglia. Make sure it is in NTSC mode; toggle it to NTSC if necessary. Then turn it off. Wait 10-15 seconds. Then turn it on again (required when you change between PAL and NTSC).
-Turn on your VCR, with a tape ready to play.
-Then boot your iMac.
-Start up iMovie.
-Make sure your iMovie Preferences show New Project Frame Rate = 29.97 fps (NTSC) - not 25 fps (PAL).
-Create a new iMovie project.
-Start your VCR playback BEFORE you begin capturing in iMovie.
Let us know if this solves the problem.

Device for importing old VHS tapes into Mac to edit and make DVDs

Having tried one device unsuccessfully, we're looking for a device that we can use to convert old VHS tapes so we can edit in iPhoto/ Movie and store on DVDs. The one we tried came from the Apple retail store, but the Genius Bar was not able to get it to work. Thanks.

Here is how I do that (this only works with non-copy protected videos):
Connect the VHS tape player via RCA cables to an analogue-to-digital converter like, for example, the Canopus ADVC110.
Connect the converter via firewire to your Mac.
Import into iMovie as DV stream (I use iMovie 6). Edit out irritating commercials (from TV programs) and other glitches.
Convert to standard DVD format of mpeg2 in iDVD and burn to reliable media like Verbatim DVD-R.
Job done!

Archiving old VHS home movies

I have a Canon MV500i camera and I am finally getting round to a project of getting all my old VHS home videos into digital format. I have turned on the AV To DV Out, and I have no problem showing the film on the camcorder, but how do I get iMovie show it? If I have no tape in the camcorder, iMovie does not allow import. If I place a tape in and click import - it imports the tape and doesn't show the av import. What am I doing wrong?

Hi Gwyn.
I have just started transferring my old VHS home movies using a Canon MV830i. I don't know if yours will have exactly the same buttons as mine but I assume they are similar.
I recorded the VHS footage onto the DV tape in the camera. I then imported it separately into iMovie. It takes ages but it was easy to do.
My camcorder was set to VCR. The AV terminal was connected to one of the scarts on the back of the video. We had to buy a scart adapter with an input/output switch to connect the cable to. (The adapter only cost a couple of pounds.) There is a button on my camcorder (under the LCD screen) marked "rec pause". We pressed that and it said "pause" on the LCD screen. We set the video playing and then pressed the play/pause button on the camcorder and it started recording. This all sounds terribly complicated but was actually quite easy.
I recorded an hour at a time (as the DV tapes are an hour) and then transferred that into iMovie. I transferred 7 hours of VHS in total so the whole process took 14 hours!
Unfortunately I hadn't set iMovie to limit the length of clips as they were imported and some of them were very long. It made editing difficult and it ended up using huge amounts of my hard drive. I have now reduced my 7 hours to one hour with some heavy editing and we've produced our first DVD.
I'm now about to start on the next batch. Fortunately there will be less this time. (Child number one had 7 hours of her baby years. Child number 2 has 3 hours. And poor child number 3 seems to have hardly any!)
Rachel

How do I move all my songs OUT of a old iPod into my com so I can put new songs in?

How do I move all my songs OUT of a old iPod into my com so I can put new songs in?

See this older post from another forum member Zevoneer describing the different methods available for copying content from your iPod back to your PC.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2452022?start=0&tstart=0
B-rock

My current os x is 10.9.5, using final cut express vers. 4.0.1. I have imported .mov clips created with a older mac os x (lion) and converted them to import into fce. after doing this as well as putting clips on the fce timeline when playing back t.h

My current os x is 10.9.5, using final cut express vers. 4.0.1. I have imported .mov clips created on a older mac os x (lion) and when I wanted to import them into fce, a quicktime conversion window opened up and converted them (I haven't experienced this in the past). I then imported the converted quicktime clips into my fce project. After doing this I took selected clips and put those edited clips on the fce timeline. When playing the video back in the fce timeline,I noticed
1) the video wasn't playing back smoothly like the original content
2) when looking at the timecode reading of the timeline, the timecode was sputtering as well as the video and audio. I exported to quicktime just to see if that was consistent, it was.
When I play the converted quicktime content independently of fce, it plays normally (no sputtering of timecode, video and audio. Need help to resolve the sputtering playback of converted video content in the fce timeline. I've never experienced this before. Any suggestions?

When you say you converted the clips before importing them into FCE, did you convert to AIC or DV and do the converted clips match your FCE Sequence settings exactly? If not, go back and convert the original files again, using the intended Sequence settings as a guide.
-DH

Hello to tuti, what must I do to import into FCE mov video converter registered with Nikon D3100, which should I use? thanks from italy monza rudy

Hello , what must I do to import into FCE the mov video converter registered with Nikon D3100,
the timeline of the rendering is orange (fce)
which should I use?
thanks from italy monza rudy

rodolfofromconcorezzo wrote:
Hello , what must I do to import into FCE the mov video converter registered with Nikon D3100,
the timeline of the rendering is orange (fce)
which should I use?
thanks from italy monza rudy
I do not understand the part regarding importing the Registered Video Converter!!
Can you explain this in more detail please???
Al

Question about bringing Hi8 movies into FCE

I have many 8mm tapes dating back, 5-15 years. I would like to bring the footage into FCE and then brun them to DVD before I lose too much quality (we have watched them many times over the years).
I read that I would require a TBC device. I am not familiar with this device, or what it does, or how it works.
http://store.apple.com/us/product/TJ555LL/A
Can someone explain to me how I would connect this to my Imac and the process of using it to convert my old tapes?
Thank you
-Mike

If yours is a digital-8 camera, you can capture from the camera. If it's not, then you can't; the footage must be digitized by some device between your camera and your Mac. (If you have a dv camera, you could connect 8mm cam to dv cam, dub to dv, then capture from dv cam directly.) In any event, one hour of dv footage is about 13GB.
My suggestion is to look somewhere OTHER THAN an Apple store for a better price on the converter. Do an online search.

Cannot import .mov files into FCE

I bought a new Kodak Zi8 pocket video camera to use to finish a video project because my right hand is in a cast and I cannot use my HD video camera. Unfortunately for me, I have a deadline to meet.
I shot video at 720p and tried to import it into FCE 4.0.1 to edit using Log and Transfer and got the warning message, '"863_0156.MOV" contains unsupported media or has an invalid directory structure. Please choose a folder whose directory structure matches supported media.' I also shot video at 1080p and, of course, cannot import it into FCE either using Log and Transfer.
I am still a relatively new FCE user and would appreciate any suggestions you can give me. I looked in Tom's book (FCE 4 Editing Workshop)on page 73. Will Quicktime Pro 10 convert the files? If so what is the procedure?
I have seen similar questions in this discussion forum on importing .mov files, but I haven't seen a solution that works for me. How can I convert the .mov files to get Log and transfer in FCE to accept them?

Hi(Bonjour)!
This pocket camera record H.264. So the material as to be converted to a format supoported natively by FCE as Apple Intermediate Codec 1080. Search this forum with +MPEG streamclip+ keyword.
Michel boissonneault

A problem capturing VHS tapes into FCE via Miglia Directors Cut

I am trying to capture vhs recordings via Miglia Directors Cut into FCE. FCE does not seem to be recognising or capturing. The footage will be visible in the capture preview window but when capture is started nothing appears in the main capture window and the preview goes back to No preview available.
The VHS deck is connected to the directors cut via composite cables, and the Directors Cut is connected via firewire to my G5. Does this in itself create a problem?

Use the FCE Easy Setup called *DV-PAL DV Converter* if you are working with PAL video (DV-NTSC DV Converter if you are working with NTSC video).
Also make sure all settings in the Miglia unit are correct for PAL video.
Also, I have found it helpful to have the video running before you click the Capture Now button.
One other thing, the Miglia Directors Cut spec sheet says that it is not compatible with the PowerMac G5 or Mac Pro. I do not understand why this should be unless it has something to do with the unit being powered by the FW bus. Do you happen to have the optional power supply for your unit?
+Macintosh Compatibility+
+• Mac with FireWire connectivity+
+• Mac OS 9.1+, Mac OS X+
+• NOT compatible with PowerMacs G5 PCI-Express and MacPro+

I transferred home movies from VHS to DVD. How do I import the data into imovie.

I transferred home movies from VHS to DVD. I can open the data using the DVD Player but I cannot import data into imovie. Any ideas?

Another option is to download the free app MPEG Streamclip from Squared 5 here:
http://www.squared5.com/svideo/mpeg-streamclip-mac.html
After loading the DVD on your Mac, drag the icon onto Streamclip's window. From the menu choose File>Export to QuickTime then for Compression select the Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC). Adjust the quality slider from 50% to about 75% - that should give good quality at a reasonable file size. Leave other settings as they are and click on Make Movie. From the next box, choose a name for the file (it will be a .mov file) and a save location (say Desktop).
The saved .mov file can now be imported to an Event and edited if desired in iMovie.
Note that you may be asked to instal a file from Apple. It's named QuickTime MPEG-2 Playback Component for Mac OS X. It's priced at US$19.99 and is available from the US Apple Store here:
http://store.apple.com/us/product/D2187Z/A?
John
Message was edited by: John Cogdell

HT3775 This info is not helping. I am using VC500MAC digital video conversion system to record old VHS tapes to computer. The file is .mov, but quicktime is not playing it back. Help, please.

This info is not helping. I am using VC500MAC digital video conversion system to record old VHS tapes to computer. The file is .mov, but quicktime is not playing it back. Help, please.

Sorry for this question. Can you use this device with Vlc or QuickTime? Does skype support it? Is this device supported only by its own software?
I need a device that can work with my own software. My software can work only with a QuickTime supported device.
Thanks if you will reply to me.

Videotape movies (old VHS) into FCE

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for