VHS to VCD MPG
If you’ve got a VHS video that’s not available on DVD and that you’d like to preserve for future use, you can digitize the video at the IDEA Center. I will assume that you have taken the proper steps to ensure that you may in fact convert the video from one format to another.
You’ll be using two pieces of equipment (a JVC deck and a Mac G5) and two pieces of software (iMovie and Compressor). Don’t worry, it’s very easy.
- Make sure the JVC deck is connected to the Mac by firewire. The connections are conveniently located on the front of both devices.
- Turn on the JVC deck; select VHS (rather than DV).
Launch iMovie; make sure you are in capture mode (camera icon) and select the JVC deck (SR-VS30)- Hit “Play” on the JVC deck.
Hit “Import” in iMovie. Hit “Import” again to stop capturing.- Once you’ve captured all you want, click and drag the clips you want down to the timeline.
- Once the clips are in place, you need to share (export) the movie; click File - Share and choose QuickTime; under “Compress movie for” choose Expert Settings. Click “Share”.
- Under “Movie to QuickTime Movie” click “Options” and set the size to the custom size of 352×240; click “Save”.
Now you’ve got a QuickTime movie (.mov), which is fine and you can stop here if you want. Let’s keep going, however, to create a VCD compliant mpeg, which will allow us to distribute the video on a regular CD-R and to play it on some DVD players.
Launch Compressor.- Click the + to add the movie we just shared from iMovie.
- Click the drop-down dialog under Preset and choose VCD - MPEG-1 352×240.
- Wait for it to encode.
Now you have a VCD-type MPEG movie that you can either burn to a CD-R and play using Windows Media Player, or you can burn it as a VCD, which allows you to play it with a DVD player (assuming your DVD player supports it).
