It started sometime last year. I was looking for a way to record Buffy the Vampire Slayer and keep the videos in a video archive. Of course, the traditional way to do this would be to use a VCR, record each show, and store the tape somewhere. But recording on VHS is a problem.
First, tapes are huge! In my already overcrowded media cabinets, I have no room for an entire season's worth of episodes on tape. Even if I managed to put four episodes on a tape (not likely) I'd still be stuffing a horde of Buffy tapes on my shelves.
Second, tapes wear out! Everyone has a tape or two that they play over and over. Eventually they just don't look as good as when they were first recorded. Some tapes simply stop working after a few dozen plays.
Third, tapes are linear! I don't know about you, but I hate to rewind. It wears the tape mechanisms out and it wastes time.
Well, I wasn't really looking for an alternative, but my brother mentioned something about MPEG-4, and in passing VCDs. I did a little research and came up with a system.
Technology Background
You'll need a little background before I get into my plan. VCDs are CDs that contain video, hence "Video CD". You're probably familiar with DVDs in regard to storing video on a disk, but maybe not VCDs. What's the difference?
DVD disks store a lot more than VCDs. CDs can only hold 640 megabytes, whereas DVDs can store upwards of 5 gigabytes, more than 8 times the storage space.
VCDs use MPEG-1 compresson, which is older than the MPEG-2 compression used on DVDs. The MPEG-1 used on VCDs is at a much higher compression ratio than that use on DVD, which causes the quality of the picture to suffer.
VCDs can only hold one hour of video, unlike DVDs, which can hold two hours or more, with separate audio and subtitle tracks, and interactive menus.
My Plan
Last spring, I bought a Dazzle Digital Video Creator. The Dazzle lets me connect a VCR to my computer (or any video source) and record the video directly to the computer in MPEG-1 format. There are no temporary files, just compressed video. Luckily enough, there is a setting ("VCD") that lets me record with the exact video quality settings necessary to create VCDs.
I can create VCD-style video files of Buffy episdoes (sans commercials! :) on my hard drive using the Dazzle, then using Adaptec's Easy CD Creator software, I can burn a CD with the required format for a VCD disk. It's pretty easy.
And time consuming.
Man, Am I Lazy
Well, I could sit there and watch every episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer play through my VCR into the Dazzle, cut out the commercials, fiddle with the intro, create a track menu, and burn the CD. Doing that, it takes 1.5 to 2 hours from sitting at the computer with a recorded episode to leaving with a burned VCD.
Unless I record to a CD-RW, the disk won't play back in my DVD player. If I try to burn it to CD-R, I get a disk that I can only play on my computer. That's assuming that I did everything right and didn't end up with a coaster. Sometimes the CD-RWs don't even work. Gah!
I've got all of this technology and I'm still wasting my time with transfers. I watch the video while it's recording to tape, then I watch the video while it plays into the Dazzle, then I watch it again to make sure I've got a quality VCD recording. Isn't there another option?
Future Alternatives
Ok, I plod around the web too much, but it amuses me. And while doing it I came across two products that might solve my VCD problems.
Amidst the assortment of VCD players out there (which are pretty easy to get in asia, but not so easy to get here in the US) I found two VCD recorders. These things attach to the entertainment system like a VCR, but record to CD-Rs or CD-RWs and make, you guessed it, VCDs!
Amoisonic made the more impressive-looking system, in my opinion. But according to this consumer review, it's the lesser of the two models. Not to mention that I can't find it on sale anywhere, especially not for the suggested $299 retail price.
That review mentions the other recorder, TeraOptix's Terrapin, as well. TechTV's Jim Louderback of Fresh Gear did a short, inept report on it last year, so you know this thing's a bit more mainstream, even if it is ugly as sin.
However, VideoGuys put out the best review of the Terapin I've seen. The guy even rewrites and expounds on the poorly-translated sections of the manual.
There are a few cool points of the Terapin, including the ability to write to CD-RW, which would be nice for keeping things temporarily. Plus it can play back unfinalized disks, so you can remove the disk between recording sessions. It should play back regular purchaed VCDs (I get mine from Malaysia), but I haven't read that specifically, anywhere.
And the best part is, unlike the Amoisonic VDR2000, that you can get this recorder everywhere. Of course, the bad part is that it costs nearly $600. Eep. Santa, you listening?
Looks like I'll just have to build my own or rent a warehouse for all of my tapes.
Followup
It turns out that this article is pretty popular among searchers. I had to resurrect it from the old site (3 versions ago, on 11/15/2000) in order to put it here to collect your inquiries.
Suffice to say that I have since obtained a Terapin VCD recorder. It is the best thing ever. Now I just record TV into my DishPlayer like I normally do, and if I want a recording, I just play it back through the Terapin while it records.
There is a little timing involved in getting it to edit out the commercials without cutting off the playback. I have devised a method by which I can play back a recording and get a nice blunt cut at the beginning with no commercial and no "Play" graphic. While watching the live encoding on the Terapin, I wait for the instant the show starts. I then hit the Instant Replay button on the DishPlayer, and as soon as the picture shows the replay taking effect I push the Confirm button on the Terapin remote. There is a short, noticeable lag between pushing the buttons on the satellite remote and viewing the effect on screen after the Terapin MPEG encoding. This equates to about a 4 second delay in recording and is coincidentally the same length as the Instant Replay that is left to play through the encoding delay.
I don't record a lot of stuff with the Terapin these days, but it's still a useful tool. I have not recorded anything on VHS since the Terapin showed up, and I've used my VCR maybe once all of last year.
I've seen a lot online about this DVD recording software, which is a new interest now that I have a DVD recorder in my computer. This software purports to copy a DVD in one click. I read a review on the Screen Savers site yesterday with the cons of the software.
First, it's not usually one-click copy. That's not really that bad, but they did say that the one-push button isn't in an obvious place. That's pretty much the standard for software that was probably written by a 14-year old.
Second, since most DVDs these days are dual-layered, they hold nearly twice the content of a recordable. So you need two DVD-Rs to record a whole movie. Apparently, you get some kind of mesage when you need to swap disks. Weird.
Anyhow, I buy most of my DVDs these days, so I really don't have a need for "backups" (yeah right). You've gotta be one cheap dude to have to copy DVDs.
Now if we're talking about DivX encoding, that's something else. Anyone have any info how to transfer all of my Invader Zim episodes onto one DVD that'll playback on the TV? I'm sure I remember seeing a list of players that support DivX codec playback. Probably on VCDHelper (link above).