[lordsmurf]

This short series of mini-guides is being written for a very specific task, using specific equipment. (Someday full versions will appear on the main digitalFAQ.com site.)

Prerequisites:

• VHS tapes, especially EP or SLP mode recordings
• one of the best Panasonic or JVC S-VHS VCRs
• MPEG capture card
• MPEG video editor, Womble MPEG Video Wizard is suggested
• SoundForge plus the SoundForge filter pack from this site, and/or GoldWave
• BeLight + BeSweet
• graphics software, Photoshop suggested
• DVD authoring software, and Ulead DVD Workshop 2 is my favorite
• ImgBurn
• Taiyo Yuden, Verbatim/Mitsubishi or Sony blank DVD+R or DVD-R discs

Your workflow needs to look like this:

1. capture video in WinTV with Hauppauge card
2. edit video (remove commercials, cut junk from before or after show) in an MPEG editor, be it Womble MPEG-VCR, Womble MPEG Video Wizard (my top choice), VideoReDo or TMPGEnc MPEG Editor.
3. take edited MPEG file, re-encode video to best file for a DVD, also converting audio to WAV for restoration
4. restore WAV file (remove hiss, noise, buzz, etc) in SoundForge and/or Goldwave
5. take new clean audio WAV, convert to AC3 or MP2 in BeLight
6. create some nice menus in software like Photoshop
7. author in DVD-Lab with nice menus, good video, clean audio
8. burn DVD folder set with ImgBurn using Verbatim or Taiyo Yuden discs

notes for later
Prerequisites:
VHS tapes, especially older EP or SLP mode recordings
Panasonic AG-19x0P or JVC HR-Sxx00 (7000-9000 series, SR-Vx series) S-VHS VCRs -- the Panasonic works best on the SLP/EP tapes, though the JVC will give a cleaner picture (although it might not track the SLP as well) -- this guide assumes older EP tapes through a Panasonic AG-1980P
MPEG capture card, such as the Hauppauge PVR series or the ATI AIW Radeon AGP cards
MPEG video editor, Womble MPEG Video Wizard is suggested for videos longer than 2 hours ($34 at time of this writing)
SoundForge and.or GoldWave, plus the SoundForge filter pack from this site
BeLight to convert the restored WAV to AC3 -- NOTE: BeLight is the GUI (graphic interface) for the command-line BeSweet audio editor. You have to install Besweet somewhere, and then put BeLight into the BeSweet folder. There is no "installer" for this software. Manually download and unzip it,