Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Just a note to the people who come here

Sorry I have updated lately, life goes pretty fast as Ferris keeps telling and I get behind pretty quick. I will be updating the blog more often and I have my "studio" almost ready for the vlogging.

So check back and I will see if I can get some stuff up from your pleasure.
saw this one this week and thought I need to use it in a blog- except I don't have a girlfriend or even a love interest to work it into (unless someone volunteers that is)

watching my friends who are "girls" (women mostly) post and the feedback they get and the backlash I get when I don't flatter/sympathize/fawn over them and their point is pretty epic at times. 

I have to agree with this one, since I almost never think of myself as I actually look. In my mind's eye I am a totally different person. For one thing, I am much better looking...and thinner.... and shorter.

Speaking of which, how many women (or men) prescribe to this idea. when I saw it my first thought was Stephanie Plum and Lola then a nutella eating relative came to mind...

I have always wanted to end up in a apostrophe... err catastrophe... no wait I am think of a word like-? 

this would be the story of my life for the last 15 years (since I became fat) and before that it was more "Oh Mike I think of you as a big brother...can't we just be friends?"

She is hot and super cool (I have met her) Fanboy moment.

sigh, so true. no cure. 

and that is life according to Mike.

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

The Lowdown on transferring VHS to DVD

A few things to know going into this
1. What is it that you want to transfer. i.e. are we talking home movies or regular movies (the short answer is it is not worth it).
2. What quantity of VHS tapes are we talking about. How long is each tape, this will affect how much you can put on a DVD (cost of DVDs are very reasonable- so no worries there)
3. How old is the VHS tapes? Have they been watched a lot? The reason I ask this, IS in my experience the older the tape the less it is worth the effort to transfer. VHS tapes (especially those made prior to 1984) breakdown and go dark. With the old tapes it is a chemical binding agent that decays- these usually are quite dark, with the more recent 1985+ it is a magnetic breakdown resulting in snow or pixellation (little squares)
4. what was the original production value. a well shot tape is worth converting, a crappie shot tape will drive you crazy and is a waste of time unless you believe it is a moment worth treasuring forever. Production values are things like was a tripod used, did someone white balance, was there lighting, did you shoot against a window, etc.
bad film making will make an old tape even worse
5. What are you  willing to spend.
6. most transfers can do little to improve light levels or restore tapes which brings me to the last and worst thing
7. (I love 7) Dirt/dust/grime. Well watched tapes are dirty which can kill a transfer as fast as anything, it also is hard on the transfer device.
Options:

you can waste some money on a convertor unit ($100-300), these unit do about as good a job as one can get (i will get to that in a bit)
these units employ direct transfers and do a reasonable job with the quality of transfer with a few problems.
1. the transfers are direct and 1 to 1 time wise
2. it is possible to have multiple vhs transfers to one DVD albeit often very complicated
3. each of these units comes with its own (and rather bizarre) authoring software {this is where it creates a DVD menu and such)
4. the transferred DVD can only be read not copied on the same machine. This part is complicated so bear with me. if you are doing 1 vhs to 1 dvd, you can make several copies 1 at a time (i.e. put in blank DVD, run transfer, finish DVD, then repeat. it works but takes a lot of time) Also forget about watching the DVD on the Computer: 9 times out of 10 the PC/Mac won't even recognize it as a DVD (this is where the bizarre software comes in)
5. no copyrighted VHS will transfer (industry blocked this from happening.)
6. cost of the convertor is seldom worth transferring less than 30 VHS tapes.

alright that being said, option #2
you can have someone do it for you, the end result will be a version of the above.
locally services will do it for you, they are on broadway near town. They tend to be fairly high like $25 per transfer/tape.
Walgreens has a transfer service (which is the main reason I gave up trying to do it) the price is very reasonable and is what I would recommend if you are dead set on doing it.

option #3
I can do it, I have one of these machines. we can discuss price if you want. it boils down to time invested.
I can also produce copies
also depending on what you want and how much (length/content) I can do a computer capture of it.
yes I can do it. (but I will charge as much as the local and there will be a bunch of disclaimers like
if your tape breaks while copying then tuff cookies, can't fix it- won't try
if you don't like the end result, then I will refund the cost of production but not the time I spent doing it. 
Payment due on receipt of transferred DVDs.
It's about being practical.

Option #4 you are going to love this!
You can do it with your PC.
sou will need a capture device (a cheap one is called the Dazzle- I don't know if they are still being made but they range from $12 (cheap Chinese units) to $45 and up.
They require software (some of which will come with the device if you buy it boxed) and patience to figure out what you are doing. This option is the cheapest and most time consuming as you will have to capture each VHS to the computer and then store the videos and compile them into a collection, then use a program to "author" (create the DVD) and then render it to DVD and then Burn it to DVD.
The plus side of this process, is that these DVDs are very easy to make copies of.
also you can bypass copyright (with some additional software)

considering everything, at the end of the day, we all have movies on mediums we would like to convert in the abstract but in reality it is seldom worth the time, tension/stress and the money to do it or get it down. Most people's home movies are just not worth it.
The most important question at the end of the day is:
Who is going to watch this?
and if you get that down, then will they want to watch it more than once?

My parents and grandparents made tons of 8mm films/slides and even a few VHS. 
8mm is super complicated with only the most professional service being worth the effort but comes with a premium price. We had some down locally and it was okay, but I wouldn't pay to have that kind of transfer down again. Also we watched it once (only once).
The VHS transfers I did myself and that is partly where I figured out that the VHS to DVD transfers are at best problematic and at worst very disappointing. I started with doing option #4 and ended up with option #1 and the results were mostly the same. 
to coin the phrase, the results were Meh (very mediocre).
as to copyrighted Movies and TV and such.
it is illegal. And even if it wasn't it's not worth it especially since it is far cheaper to just go buy the 'DVDs these days


and that is some of life according to Mike.
This started out as an email to my cousin in response to a question I get asked alot.