Author Topic: Game Shows on VHS to DVD (Read 25322 times)

ChuckNet · « **Reply #75 on:** July 22, 2008, 04:52:22 PM »

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Disc wise...I use Sony DVD-Rs. Very rarely do I get coasters, and they hold up well. AVOID Memorex discs at all costs...they barely hold 1/2 discful before croaking.

I'll echo those sentiments on Memorex discs...just snagged a batch @ Best Buy a coupla wks ago, and more often than not, any unfinalized discs won't even load up if they've been ejected from my unit.

Chuck Donegan (The Ripped-Off "Chuckie Baby")

clemon79 · « **Reply #76 on:** July 22, 2008, 05:17:07 PM »

[quote name=\'Hastin\' post=\'191722\' date=\'Jul 22 2008, 01:10 PM\']
I do. A small shuttle Vista Media Center box, it's what all my TV gets stored on (and then extended to many rooms using a couple of Xbox 360s). I just fill externals with programs I want, then when they are full, catalog them, and put them away.[/quote]
And you're going to bring that over to a friend's house when you want to show them stuff off of it?

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As for old phones, I've got a rotary in my room that really works (even has the teen-friendly (as advertised in 1971) long handset cable). It blends nice in my retro-future themed room.

Do you keep it next to the Shuttle?

Jay Temple · « **Reply #77 on:** July 22, 2008, 09:37:45 PM »

[quote name=\'ChuckNet\' post=\'191732\' date=\'Jul 22 2008, 03:52 PM\']

Quote

Disc wise...I use Sony DVD-Rs. Very rarely do I get coasters, and they hold up well. AVOID Memorex discs at all costs...they barely hold 1/2 discful before croaking.

I'll echo those sentiments on Memorex discs...just snagged a batch @ Best Buy a coupla wks ago, and more often than not, any unfinalized discs won't even load up if they've been ejected from my unit.

Chuck Donegan (The Ripped-Off "Chuckie Baby")
[/quote]
I tossed my iLo in January because the failed discs were bad for my blood pressure. In the instructions for the Philips, they recommend Maxell or Verbatim (or a couple others I don't recall), but not Memorex.

As an aside, while I'm certainly glad to lose only one disc in six months, I kind of miss being able to have six titles on one screen instead of three.

tvwxman · « **Reply #78 on:** July 22, 2008, 10:05:22 PM »

[quote name=\'bellbm\' post=\'191678\' date=\'Jul 22 2008, 01:05 PM\']
I just transfer to my hard drive, edit into MPEG2 files, and with my new TIVO, I can now access any episode, any time I want.
I have the video tape back up, in case my hard drive ever crashes.

No need for DVD media at all (unless I want to watch a show somewhere else, other than my living room).
[/quote]
See now, this is, I think, the smartest way to play this. I have not dumped my 150 tapes on to DVD, and, currently, I have no plans to. What I intend on doing, is slowly dumping the shows on to my hard drive...since they're getting bigger and cheaper, that way, i can dump on to dvd whenever i need to, whatever i need to.

Side question : I'm using Pinnacle's media center, and have it hooked up to my VHS for injesting. Any suggestions on other programs for better results? currently , I get decent results , but the Pinnacle craps out often.

clemon79 · « **Reply #79 on:** July 23, 2008, 03:27:11 AM »

[quote name=\'tvwxman\' post=\'191775\' date=\'Jul 22 2008, 07:05 PM\']
See now, this is, I think, the smartest way to play this.[/quote]
Until the drive fails and you lose everything.

If a DVD goes bad, you lose....that DVD. If the drive goes bad, unless you have a second one stashed away someplace that you sync up to regularly, you're screwed.

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I have not dumped my 150 tapes on to DVD, and, currently, I have no plans to. What I intend on doing, is slowly dumping the shows on to my hard drive...since they're getting bigger and cheaper, that way, i can dump on to dvd whenever i need to, whatever i need to.

Two hour tapes, or six? One would hope you have enough respect for your video collection to not waste it on SLP, but the trading scene might not share that opinion.

So let's split the difference and call it four. Last night I ripped a couple of Duran Duran videos (you in the back, shut up), and for 640x480 (probably good enough for old television archiving) it was 50 meg for about four and a half minutes of video at MP4. So 11 meg a minute. Multiply that by 36,000 minutes and you have 396 GB. So, yeah, couple of $100 500GB drives, some way to sync one to the other regularly, and you're set. But you'd better have that second drive. I speak from experience.

joshg · « **Reply #80 on:** July 23, 2008, 08:30:55 AM »

[quote name=\'Seth Thrasher\' post=\'191700\' date=\'Jul 22 2008, 11:25 AM\']
[quote name=\'joshg\' post=\'191677\' date=\'Jul 22 2008, 01:04 PM\']
Is this what I have to look forward to with my DMR-EZ17?
[/quote]

Probably. And based on the number of folks complaining about u61 errors (and no three people's errors seem to have the same source) the problems start about 2 months after your warranty expires.
[/quote]
...and wouldn't you know it, the ES-10 drawer refuses to stay shut, with or without a disc in the tray. It opens fine, it closes fine, makes a strange noise and the drawer comes back out. Grr.

cmjb13 · « **Reply #81 on:** July 23, 2008, 09:23:45 AM »

[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'191808\' date=\'Jul 23 2008, 03:27 AM\']
[quote name=\'tvwxman\' post=\'191775\' date=\'Jul 22 2008, 07:05 PM\']
See now, this is, I think, the smartest way to play this.[/quote]
Until the drive fails and you lose everything.
[/quote]
One should consider RAID 1 or RAID 5 so this wouldn't be an issue. Of course, if two drives fail, that's another story.

TheLastResort · « **Reply #82 on:** July 23, 2008, 02:50:11 PM »

[quote name=\'cmjb13\' post=\'191821\' date=\'Jul 23 2008, 08:23 AM\']One should consider RAID 1 or RAID 5 so this wouldn't be an issue. Of course, if two drives fail, that's another story.[/quote]

Pick up a ReadyNAS Duo and be done with it.

tvwxman · « **Reply #83 on:** July 23, 2008, 07:53:38 PM »

Folks who know me (and probably judging from the silly tech questions I've asked here before), won't be surprised by this :

[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'191808\' date=\'Jul 23 2008, 03:27 AM\']
Until the drive fails and you lose everything.

If a DVD goes bad, you lose....that DVD. If the drive goes bad, unless you have a second one stashed away someplace that you sync up to regularly, you're screwed.

But you'd better have that second drive. I speak from experience.
[/quote]

THIS CAN HAPPEN?

Holy smokes, I hadn't even realized that. You can't resusitate an external hard drive to get data off of it?

So, what's the option here...constantly keep back ups of back ups of back ups? It's not the video I'm concerned with here, it's photos and word files that have WAY more meaning to me than game show videos.

Thanks in advance.

JayDLewis · « **Reply #84 on:** July 23, 2008, 08:11:48 PM »

[quote name=\'tvwxman\' post=\'191897\' date=\'Jul 23 2008, 06:53 PM\']

[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'191808\' date=\'Jul 23 2008, 03:27 AM\']
Until the drive fails and you lose everything.

[/quote]

THIS CAN HAPPEN?

[/quote]

Yessir. My friend wants to rip his entire DVD collection and will likely need 2Tb of storage. 1Tb for this current and future movies and 2Tb for back-up. When you're talking that much data, you need to visit the Department of Redundancy Department. (He also needs to build a HTPC and code his interface but that's fairly simple)

Vista has a "ghosting" program built in for automatic backups and Norton's Ghost is probably the best in the market place.

By the by, no problems with my "cheap" ($130) LG writer or my "cheap" Memorex DVDs.

clemon79 · « **Reply #85 on:** July 23, 2008, 08:29:54 PM »

[quote name=\'tvwxman\' post=\'191897\' date=\'Jul 23 2008, 04:53 PM\']
THIS CAN HAPPEN?[/quote]
Yes. It's an electronic device. A mechanical, electronic device. Those do eventually fail. Hopefully later rather than sooner, but two months ago I had a 400GB drive that I'd had for a year and a half go belly-up on me. Fortunately with a little magic I was able to get most of the data off of it (and almost all of the really REALLY important stuff), but I damn well have a backup strategy in place now.

(Understand that in almost twenty years of PC computing that's only the second drive I've had die on me, but still.)

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Holy smokes, I hadn't even realized that. You can't resusitate an external hard drive to get data off of it?

At great expense (we're talking four digits, usually), yes, a disk recovery facility will take the drive into a cleanroom, open it, take the platters out, install them into a working mechanism, close the thing up, and recover whatever data hasn't been destroyed when the mechanics died.

Or you can put together a good onsite or offsite backup strategy for a couple hundred bucks.

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So, what's the option here...constantly keep back ups of back ups of back ups? It's not the video I'm concerned with here, it's photos and word files that have WAY more meaning to me than game show videos.

I don't think multiple backups are necessary. I believe Our Benevolent Moderator Matt said that any time he burns a DVD that he really really doesn't want to lose, he burns two and puts the second one away. Good idea.

If you're going to keep your life on a hard drive, it's a good idea to back up whatever data you deem to be Worth Keeping to a second drive...you could have both drives installed and just mirror the whole thing as you go (that's the RAID 1 thing mentioned above) or you can copy off what you need to at intervals (that's what I do...I basically have most of my user account folder dupe off to my second drive every night at 6:20). Or you can subscribe to a service where you can upload all of those files to a professional server (itself backed up out-the-ass) offsite, so that even if your house burns down (Glub forbid) you still have your data. For any other situation, it's extremely unlikely (though not impossible, see Surge, Power) that both drives are going to kick at the exact same time.

Photos and Word files, fortunately, compress beautifully, which means ultimately it would be a comparitively small amount of data to transfer, so I would bet one of the latter two solutions would work well for you.

tpirfan28 · « **Reply #86 on:** July 26, 2008, 12:37:47 PM »

While reading through my latest Tiger Direct catalog, I ran across this drive. I don't think it's really worth $349.99 regular price, unless you do a lot of movement around, but it does look like a geeky alternative.

clemon79 · « **Reply #87 on:** July 26, 2008, 02:44:54 PM »

I can't tell you the last time I saw a product at TigerDirect that was worth what they were charging for it.

To wit, that exact same device is available at NewEgg for $280 plus $10 to ship. And they don't try any of that smoke-blowing "$50 Instant Savings!" crap, either.

PYLdude · « **Reply #88 on:** July 27, 2008, 11:17:43 PM »

For those of us who are kinda cheap/frugal/careful with our money...

Other than the $130 LG model that JayD mentioned, is there any way we could put out for a writer/backup drive without paying out the ass for it?

(I ask because I have a few tapes worth of things...all SLP, unfortunately, as I didn't like buying tapes that often)

Ian Wallis · « **Reply #89 on:** August 10, 2008, 02:58:18 PM »

My recent experiences: my Panasonic DMR EH-55 (with a built in hard drive) was working fine from purchasing it in August 2006 until May of this year. Burned over 500 discs with no bad ones. All of a sudden it wouldn't burn or recognize any discs. I took it to a local Panasonic dealer to have it looked at. Since the repair was less than one-third of the original cost, I decided to go that route and have it repaired.

I got it back two weeks later and it worked a bit better but it wasn't working as it should have. In fact, one of the trades I sent out at that time one of the discs was no good. I took it back to the repair shop since it was within 90 days and they fixed it again - but this time it was gone almost a month.

I now have it back, I replaced that faulty disc for the trade, and it seems to be working fine.

I was kind of surprised that in less than two years I had these sort of problems - I expected them eventually but not that soon. I did use it heavily and I guess that's probably why it happened.

I seem to be back in business of the endless dubbing of my tapes (still only two-thirds of the way through) but am wondering how long it will be before I'll be on my second machine.

I thought Panasonics were more sturdy than that!