Busy day. On my third attempt, I finally got a good dub of a VHS tape. This, I have learned, requires four steps to get to DVD. I used a free program call VirtualDub to go from tape (via an ATI All-In-Wonder videocapture card) to a 640x480 29.97 fps AVI file. That part takes as long as whatever you’re capturing.
Next, since it was a movie, the telecine (a process used on VHS to adjust the frame rate of the original movie to that of a TV) had to be removed and the picture adjusted to 512x384, also done with VirtualDub (a great free program, though the video compression codecs are not free). That takes roughly double the time of the original video.
To get the video (and audio) prepped for DVD, I used TMPGEnc (not free, but reasonable) to the 720x480 MPEG-2 file needed for a DVD. Oh yeah, we’re back to 29.97 fps. This takes about three times the length of the original video.
I’ve settled on Nero to burn the DVD (at last). This part is tricky. If anything went wrong along the way (you can proof along the way, of course), you waste a DVD-R (or +R) which still costs as much as a draft beer. So I let Nero create an .nrg image file and proof it at this point, using DAEMON Tools (another free program) to mount it on a virtual DVD drive. If it’s okay - burn, baby, burn. You can also check it out on a DVD-(+)RW.
While all that was happening, I managed to get two loaves of bread baked and fix bison burgers for Liz and I. Bison is dry, so I partially rendered chopped bacon to put in them. The bacon fat was handy for sautéing a chopped onion, which also went into the burgers. Yesterday, the pressure cooker made some more beef broth, so I used a couple of cups of that as a gravy base, completed with a can (also sautéed) of mushrooms and a bag of Knorr’s Brown Gravy Mix. So we had mashed potatoes with the burgers and watched The Magdalene Sisters to cheer ourselves up.
If you’re interested in processing video, I highly recommend going to VideoHelp.com. There you will find a wealth of tutorials and links to useful programs.
10:59:10 PM 
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