Longest, best quality VHS tape in SP mode?
 

Hey guys. I'm working on 2 VHS tapes. One will have wrestling on it and the other will have anything that's not wrestling. I've learned today that recording in EP mode will lessen the quality of the tape, which I was not aware of when I started recording years ago.

I've been looking at VHS tapes that are on amazon, ebay, and craigslist all day, but I need help figuring out which tape will give me good quality and more than 2 hours in SP mode. A tape that's over 3 hours in SP would be great. The tapes I've been using are Zenith T 120 HQ. Anyone know how those tapes compare to other brands? I guess I can live with anything that's an upgrade from Zenith, but I would like to get the best quality that's out there.

Also, I have a Sharp VC-H822 VCR. It says on the flap "4-Head Hi-Fi Stereo/Rapid Rewind". My question is what kind of VHS tapes can play on my VCR/are compatible? The end goal is to convert the tapes to DVD or blu ray when I finish, but I still have a lot of work to do. Hope to hear from someone. Thanks

why would you even want to record anything on a VHS tape in 2014?
every time you dub a tape you lose quality
record them directly to dvd or blu-ray - dont dub stuff to one tape first

anything Zenith is pretty much rubbish
the best tapes are S-VHS or D-VHS

if you absolutluy must record to VHS - use a JVC Super VHS deck and find some DF-420 D-VHS tapes
they will fit 3.5 hours on a tape in Sp mode

I started recording on 1 tape since the 90s. I'm guessing I will need to buy something costly to record directly to DVD or Blu ray. Do S-VHS and D-VHS tapes work on my Sharp VCR? Because I don't have much cash to play with so that's why I stuck with the VCR.

get a JVC DR-M100 DVD recorder
they are the best and not that expensive
use the XP or FR-155 modes

they s-vhs/d-vhs tape will work in the sharp, but you wont get the Super-VHS benefits
a JVC HR-S4800 or HR-S5900 vcr will do a much better job and isnt expensive

OR... just get a capture card and capture this stuff to a computer

I wasn't quite certain, so I had to check the date of this this post carefully. Yes, it really was posted in September 2014.

It took all this time for you to notice this?

You'll be looking for many, many more days. SP mode is 2-hour mode. Period. The "SP" rating has to do with the speed of the moving tape and the higher bandwidth required for more detail. However, "detail" when it comes to VHS tape is a misnomer -- VHS tape has more noise and less detail than any other consumer recording medium.

Not possible. You can get special editions of T120 tape in a 6-hour length (which means thinner, lower quality tape), which will give you about 2hrs 20minutes at SP recording speed, or 6 hours at EP.

Zenith VHS tape is garbage. The long-time consensus on the best quality VHS tape available to consumers has usually pointed to TDK EHG T-120 http://www.ebay.com/itm/TDK-T120-EHG...3D171421253437 .

I wouldn't be too proud of this. It was made long after decent Sharp VCR's had their heyday in the late 1990's. It's a typically low-budget, low quality VCR.

Any retail VHS T-120 or T-160 VHS tape is compatible.

Recording to VHS tape with the purpose of making DVD's is not just a waste of time, it's utter nonsense. Get a DVD recorder. There are only a couple of DVD recorders available today in the U.S.A., commonly found at Sears and Walmart. They carry brand names like Toshiba, Magnavox, and Panasonic, but they are all made by Funai. VHS tape is not "converted" to digital formats. Instead, it is either recorded directly to DVD media or captured to digital format onto a computer using capture devices made for that purpose. If by "BluRay" you allude to making high definition transfers from poorly recorded VHS tape, you're kidding yourself. VHS can be captured to a PC and then encoded to standard-definition 720x480 interlaced BD-R or AVCHD with any of several h264/MPEG4 encoders. There are no "BluRay" recorders for sale in North America.

If you haven't seen the digital video and capture guide in this forum, I suggest you go there immediately and stop wasting your time: http://www.digitalfaq.com/guides/video.htm

Good luck. :wink2:

a T-160 tape will do 2 hour 40 minutes in SP mode
a T-180 tape will do 3 hours SP mode
i even have a T-210 tape here - 3.5 hours in SP mode

but as Sanlyn says this is accomplished by using thinner tape stock - which isnt as good

Oops. Thanks for correcting the numbers, volksjager. Well, it's been a while. I think the last time I used T160 tape was around 1994 -- it was just too too thin, flimsy, and noisy.

sanlyn, yes, the date is right lol. Unfortunately, it did take me this long to know what EP mode does. I wasn't VCR savvy back then or now. I would never boast about my VCR, either. Just was saying which one I had. Thanks for responding.

volksjager, thanks for responding. If I got a DVD recorder, would I be able to record hdmi like I'm able to record composite on the VCR? I would like to use my PS3/PS4/laptop to record whatever's on the screen. Also, would I be able to watch the recorded DVD back right away to see how it recorded or can I only watch it back when I'm finished with the DVD? Finally, if I record something from a blu ray disc onto the DVD, would the quality show clear or mess up?

if you want to record from you game system - then you should really be using a capture device with you PC.
the Happauge HD-PVR works very well with game systems.
blu-rays are HD - DVD's are SD if you plug a blu-ray player into a DVD recorder the resulting DVD will only be SD
a blu-ray is much bigger - 25gb vs a DVD which is 4.7 gb

Hmm. I'm not sure if my laptop plays blu ray discs, so I guess I would have to record on a DVD. Would I be able to record my laptop screen on a capture device?

BluRay recorders are not available in North America. An HD-PVR as mentioned is the way to record HD over here.

Oh. I just meant if my laptop doesn't recognize blu ray discs, I can't capture it onto blu ray, which would have been great.

I'm also looking at the Elgato, as well. Is there another way to capture onto blu ray disc if my laptop doesn't accept it? Also, if I convert the recorded DVD to blu ray, will the quality stay the same as it was on DVD?

no point in blu-rays if you computer doesnt have a blu-ray drive

elgato is a cheapo low-end device
for game capturing the Happauge device is the way to go
for tapes get an ATI600USB

What would be the DVD disc I would use to record on it?

get some Mitsubishi-Verbatim blank DVD-R from Amazon

You want TDK EHG (aka Vivid) T-120 tapes: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...G44BRO2676M45Y

Or as second choice, JVC T-120 VHS tapes: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...X5I2WJ7BEZJSE2

Those were, and still are, the best tapes ever made, along with the long-gone BASF.

Both are sold everywhere, from dollar stores to electronics stores -- though the TDK is cheaper on Amazon. Beware the non-EHG TDKs!

For the DVD-R, you want these: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...MPISJSNLQEXHVL

The Sharp VC-H822 VCR is not horrible, from the early 2000s, but not as good as the mid/late models. For a recording deck, it's actually pretty decent, assuming it's in perfect alignment. And that's what discerns the 90s units from the 2000s units -- alignment. The 90s units had it, and the 2000s were very sloppy and often needed adjustment before use.

I will be recording more than 1 time. Would the DVD-R let me do that?

no
and you shouldn't re-use tapes either
you need a capture card - that way you can record stuff to your hard drive

By re-use tapes, you mean VCR tapes or DVD? You're saying it's better to just record it all at 1 time?

You don't appear to be thinking clearly about this.
Tape is tape. DVD disc is not tape.
Record onto tape once. Only. Do not re-use VHS tape. Period.

DVD disc: when you have finished recording, the disc must be finalized in the machine that made the recording. If a disc is not finalized in the machine that made the recording, the disc cannot be played in any other machine or player. After a DVD disc is finalized, it can't be re-used.

How many hours of these videos do you intend to create?

sanlyn, if I'm recording on a DVD, I guess I would be limited to 2 hours if I don't want the quality to decrease. I'm not sure how many hours a blu ray gives you until the quality decreases. 3 hours would be a good recording time for me for 2 separate discs, but I will have to make do with 2 hours if I have to.

The clarification I was trying to get from volksjager last post is if I use a DVD-R that only lets me record once (even though I need to record more than once to get different clips), will I be able to do all of the different recordings on the game capture device and then, when I reach 2 or 3 hours of recordings, be able to record all of it that 1 time on the DVD-R?

use the capture device to record the clips to you computer
once you have them all - then burn a DVD

Ok cool. If I had a blu ray external hard drive, could I use that on my cpu to burn to a blu ray disc?

volksjager has the right idea. Use an ATI600 capture device to capture VHS to a computer. This gives you the best quality for processing to DVD. At this point I'd say you know little about that processing, but a great many people do it all over the world. There are inexpensive editions of the software for doing it. A lot of free software is available as well. Don't get into all those details at this time. The main point is that recording to VHS is the lowest quality you'll get and is an unnecessary, quality-destructive hassle to deal with if you what you want is digital video. You don't need a high-powered PC to do this for standard definition video.

Your video sources are a little confusing here. You say you want to have digital video of wrestling events. I assume you mean you record wrestling shows from TV ? ? Are you using a cable box to get those TV shows? An antenna? How do you get those wrestling events? The recording device depends on what kind of TV source you use. What is meant by "everything that's not wrestling?" Are you recording game play? Other TV shows? We need more information about your video sources.

True, trying to get more than 2 hours of video onto a DVD disc is a definite quality problem. In addition, if you want to cut out segments, commercials, and that sort of thing, it's faster and easier to do it on a computer. However, you can record 2 hours to a DVD disc, and the video on that disc can be copied (not recorded again) to a computer, edited, compiled into whatever you want. But if you have something like an ATI600 copy device, it makes more sense to capture or record to a computer in the first place.

You appear to be stuck in the VHS era, when the only way to edit or copy anything from tape was to re-record it. Digital video isn't processed that way. Once you have a digital video, it can be edited and so forth in a computer.

You also keep referring to BluRay. The BluRay standard includes high-definition video and standard-definition video. There is little point in trying to make standard definition source such as VHS or DVD into high definition BluRay. Take our word on this -- not only is it very difficult to upsample SD video to HD, it's hardly worth the trouble and gives poor results if you don't have the skills and sophisticated equipment to do it -- and even then you can't expect much. There is nothing at all "bad" about standard definition DVD or SD BluRay. If SD DVD and BD are good enough for Hollywood and a prospering world-wide industry, it's certainly good enough for the rest of us. In most respects, standard definition sources look best when produced as standard DVD or SD-BluRay.

For action sports like wrestling, it's best to limit yourself to a 90-minute video on standard DVD disc. A double-layer DVD disc can contain 3 hours, although no DVD recorder available today can record to double-layer disc. If you want double layer, record to a computer or to a couple of DVD discs and edit and join the total video in a computer. A BluRay SD disc can contain 4 to 8 hours or more of standard definition video at appropriate bitrates for action video. Which of these you want to achieve depends on how the video is originally captured and processed.

The days when one could slip a VHS tape into a VCR, record 2 to 6 hours, and re-use that tape -- those days are gone. And a good thing, because VHS was never a great medium and is nothing but a big pain in the neck to archive into digital form.

While DVD and BluRay are in some ways similar, they are not "the same thing". Once you have a digital recording, you can go in several directions, including burning "DVD" as MPEG2 video data to a BluRay disc, and playing it on a BluRay player. BluRay disc requires BluRay hardware. You can play both DVD and BluRay on a BluRay player, but you can't play a BluRay disc on standard DVD-only players.

But now you're getting way ahead of yourself. Again, we need to know more about where your original videos come from.

When I said "everything that's not wrestling", I have a VHS tape that I've been recording stuff on for many years. It has a lot of wrestling stuff on it already (mostly recorded from DVDs & TV) and stuff from movies, tv shows, etc (from DVDs & TV). The tape is like 3h 17mins. Then, a subscription program called the WWE Network came out, which is kind of like Netflix for wrestling. They have around 300 WWE pay per views from 1985-2014. It was then I thought about making a separate wrestling tape and another tape for non wrestling, or just keep the one I had already made.

I started on the wrestling tape about a month ago, recording from the WWE Network app on the PS3 in composite to the VCR. For 2 weeks, I went through the PPVs to find stuff I like. Most of the things I record are a few seconds long, whether it be a wrestling move someone is doing, or a talking segment. Some clips I record may be a little longer, like 2 minutes. I stopped after 2 weeks. I have about 1h 47mins on the tape and I'm near the end of the year 2000.

Then, I started recording stuff onto my 1st tape that has the wrestling and tv stuff on it. Clips from Smallville DVDs and clips from The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises Blu Ray, thinking it will look HD when I eventually convert the VHS to DVD/Blu ray. I was in PA when I was recording all of the new wrestling tape and onto my old tape. I came back to NY last week and the first 8 mins of my old tape, where I recorded the Smallville stuff, played back shaky, dark lighting, and lost audio. It played back clear in PA, so I knew something was wrong. I tried recording something else to the beginning of the tape and it played back messed up again. That's how I knew the beginning of the tape was messed up. Then I looked up better quality VHS tapes and came across this site.

Now I would like to get those onto discs, preferably blu ray if I get more than 2 hours recording time. If I get a game capturing device, I'm guessing I should be able to record the stuff from the WWE Network from my PS3/PS4 using hdmi. For the movies, TV shows, etc, I can use the Netflix and Youtube apps on the PS3/PS4, or borrow DVDs/blu rays from people, or rent from Amazon movies and watch it on the PS3/PS4. I'm guessing I will need to get an external Blu ray drive if I want to burn it all to a blu ray disc when I'm done.

That won't happen. A DVD will look like SD-DVD and VHS will look like tape (unless the captured tape is cleaned up somewhat, in which case it will look better, maybe a bit closer to plain DVD, but it will still be an upsample of a low-resolution original). Retail DVD's are not "recorded" -- they are decrypted with various softwares into a computer, and reworked for menus and burning.

As you probably know, HDMI off cable or off BluRay is copy protected if played through HDMI. Neither DVD recorders nor VCR's nor capture cards will record high definition, nor will they record via HDMI.

If what you want are high definition recordings off an HDTV cable source or BD disc, your best bet is an HD-PVR, which records to a computer via component HD wire. Most HD PVR's record to AVCHD, which is like BluRay but "not quite". However, AVCHD can be made into standard BluRay authored BD disc and played with many (but not all) BluRay players. AVCHD can also be stored on external drives and played thru many of the same BD players.

Rather than record to tape from a PS3/PS4 via composite or s-video, you can either capture to a DVD recorder (in standard definition) or with a USB capture device to either MPEG2 ("DVD") or to losslessly compressed digital files. In either case, you can't get HD from either method. The only way to get an analog HD version of an HDMI recording or signal is to use a device that accepts component cable from the HD device and recordes to digital HD on a computer..

Those who are familiar with gaming consoles will have to advise on this, but my info is that PS3/PS4 doesn't output component HD video. For HD recordings from my HDTV cable box I use an HD-PVR and a computer built for it. There are also HD-PVR units in computer-card configurations, used to record HD to computers. These devices have minimum hardware requirements: most "typical" PC's are not equipped for HD processing, but better ones are available. I also have a standard-def digital cable box box and record SD DVD directly to some rather expensive high-end DVD recorders, which are no longer made and cost plenty ($500 MSRP) when new. Even at that, some of those SD stations send a copy protected "single-use" program that can be recorded to a DVD-R's hard drive but can't be copied off the DVD-R to a permanent disc. I record those stations off the HD box via component cable to the HD-PVR. The result is that I have (literally) thousands of decent quality SD movies on DVD disc and hundreds of HD movies on BluRay disc or stored on external hard drives. I stopped using VCR's 14 years ago for new recordings, but have a few high-end VCR's around for old VHS transfers. Almost all of the software I use for all of this endeavor is free, some is paid, all of the PC's are home made, and the hardware is of course not free. It was from forums like this that I learned to do all this stuff. There's no getting around the fact that you have to learn it to do it. Fortunately, it doesn't take that long and you only have to learn it once.

I hope you realize that DVD frame size is usually 720x480, encoded as interlaced video at bitrates ranging from a mainstream 4650 kbps VBR (that's a 2-hour bitrate) to 7000 or so VBR for fast action video (that's about a 1hr 15minute bitrate), with a max bitrate of 9000 kbps. Most retail DVD's are burned that way and achieve more than 90 minutes of playing time using double-layer discs. But HD ranges in frame size from 1280x720 to 1920x1080, at bitrates from 12000 kbps up to 30000 or 35000. A bigger frame requires higher bitrates. Fast action requires still higher bitrates. Larger frames and higher bitrates consume disc space. So, if you want a whole bunch of HD hours on a single disc, you realize the limitations. A couple of hours of HD on a single disc is within reason, and 2X or 3X that much or more can be had with standard definition BluRay.

With HDMI, you're dealing with an industry that doesn't want you to copy anything permanently. Geeks come up with workarounds to avoid HDCP protection schemes. But HDCP keeps changing, the gizmos are either obsolete in short order or prohibited by the courts, then new ones come out, and the whole dance goes round and round. It would not take too great an effort to get a few tapes onto digital disc using an inexpensive ATI600 card or a DVD recorder and some free software. No budget capture card can capture HD. After that initial transfer, it would be absurd to continue to work with VHS tape and SD recordings from a game console. It's much more work, and the results are never more than sub-par.

If you want a lot of HD programs, editing, compiling for HD and DVD disc, etc., VHS is out of the question -- unless, of course, you like it that way. But it's definitely a low-quality, work-intensive way of doing it.

After reading the product description for the Hauppauge HD PVR2 and PVR2 Gaming Edition, I should be able to record component for PS3 and hdmi for the PS4. If that's the case, if I wanted to get the HD recordings on a blu ray disc, would I have to get an external blu ray drive since my laptop doesn't accept blu ray?

If blu ray wasn't an option right now and I am using a DVD, would the recording quality on the finished DVD look like SD, even if I did the recordings in HD? I think I'd rather record in HD in case one day I want to put them on a blu ray disc, instead of recording in SD for the DVD and then again in HD for the blu ray. I doubt I will have money left over to buy a blu ray drive if I'm getting the HD PVR.

The system requirements for the HD PVR2 say I need 256MB of graphic memory, but I think I only have 64MB of dedicated graphics memory. Would that mean I have to get a new graphics card?

I don't think you're using the right tools. The PS3 can be used as a source for capture to other media only via standard definition composite output. Wide screen video will be letterboxed in a 4:3 frame on a PC or DVD recorder. The PS4 has HDMI output only. HDMI is copy-protected. Period. IMO you're better off for movies, TV broadcasts, editing, burning, etc., with something like the Hauppauge 1212 HD PVR. It has inputs and outputs for component cable, s-video, and composite. So it will accept output from HDTV component sources and from a standard definition VCR or DVD player. Its HD and SD recordings can be processed with a computer for whatever you want to do with it.

Maybe a couple of brief examples will illustrate some of the possibilities. The two short clips linked below were posted in other forums as examples of working with original HD recordings and modifying the output for one purpose or another. The links are free downloads with no ads or popup web pages. If you use Internet Explorer, right-click on the link and select "Save link as..." to save the file to your hard drive. If you use Firefox, left-click on the link and select to download to your hard drive.

The first 33MB clip is an edit from a TV rebroadcast of the TV show Castle. I recorded a bunch of these over 3 years with a Hauppauge 1212 to 1920x1080 AVCHD. I made some into HD BluRay and kept others as AVCHD .ts files on an external hard drive for playback with a BluRay player (unmodified except for removing the TV commercials). A relative wanted 6 of her favorite episodes on disc, but she had no BluRay player. So I downsampled them for DVD on my PC, cleaned them up a little and encoded them as MPEG2 for 720x480 telecined DVD with a wide-screen 16:9 playback ratio. The results are a long way from VHS or a budget DVD recorder. It was posted as a sample for proper downsampling and re-encoding, and checking for smooth motion control, absence of moire on fine textures, absence of macroblocks, posterization, gradient banding, other artifacts, etc. The result can be played on any DVD player. Let me know if you think it's BluRay or DVD. The name of the short edited clip is AVCHD_DVD_01_R3.mpg. https://www.mediafire.com/?k5c603hsy4ehe1k

The second 20MB example was recorded to 1920x1080 HD using another capture device (I forget the model number, it was another owner). It was recorded from a Korean HDTV broadcast (yes, it's in Korean!) from a concert by an all-girl Korean teen rock group. The actual sample posted in the forum was a 2nd-generation re-encode with some noise and awful color, including incorrect luma levels that burned out some of the bright white highlights, then posted to UTube. The linked clip was posted as a lesson in how to clean up noise, aliasing, bad encoding, and bad color. The result was encoded to 1920x1080 HD with an x264 encoder as an .mkv file for external hard drive storage and playback with a BluRay player. It has a lot of camera motion. Download it to your PC and see if your graphics card can handle it. It can be played with free media players such as VLC Player, MP Classic, or MPC-BE. I don't know that Windows Media Player would play it without additional codecs installed on your computer. The name of the file is AfterSchool_ColorGraded.mkv. https://www.mediafire.com/?shlbabj1xi3g410

I think you should be able to tell the difference between the way you're doing things now and the way higher quality video is handled nowadays.

When I started this thread and everyone started commenting about options I didn't know about, I knew I wasn't going to go back to recording on the VCR. Never again lol. Those clips came out really good. The 2nd one took longer for me to download and there was no sound. I couldn't really tell the difference if it was either blu ray or DVD. Were you able to fit 6 episodes onto a 2 hour DVD? I would have thought for an hour long show like Castle (45 mins without commercials) that you would only be able to fit 3 on there.

With commercials removed, I burned 6 episodes of Castle to a Verbatim DVD+R AZO double-layer DVD with full graphical menus. Never use cheap discs. It doesn't pay, and durability is inferior. For my own long-term archive, my copies of those episode are on 2 Verbatim DVD-R single-layer discs. One of these days I might not be able to afford 176-channel cable setups! I have so many videos on DVD I haven't even seen most of them yet.

Sound on one of the videos might have a problem if you don't have certain audio codecs installed. And depends on the player. Audio on both videos is Dolby Digital AC3 stereo.

Oh ok cool. I think I will use some of those when the time comes for me to put it onto DVD. The only problem I face now is budget. I see that the HD PVR costs more than the HD PVR2 and their other current products. Also, I would have to get a new graphics card to meet the required 256MB of graphic memory and a PS3 component cable since I don't have one and the PVR doesn't come with one for the PS3. On top of that, I don't see the original PVR for sale in any stores and I would like to start recording ASAP.

I may have to get the Elgato game capture HD. It comes with a component cable for the PS3 and I believe I meet all of the system requirements. It doesn't require any graphics memory, but it requires 4GB RAM, which I have enough of. I shouldn't have to buy anything else if I get that. Also, they are available in stores near me. I know volksjager didn't seem too happy with it, but shouldn't it get the job done? As long as the quality will look better than a VCR tape, that's still a significant upgrade.

Well....you're not quite there. The HD PVR records to a computer. After it's recorded, the video can be used as-is or edited on the PC and burned to disc. If you record with the 1212 to standard def, you can burn a DVD. If you record HD, you can more conveniently burn it as AVCHD to a BluRay disc, reorganize it for BluRay, or just store the videos on an external hard drive. But the only way to get a video off the PS3 is to re-record it via composite. Of course, if you use the PS3 you're still getting a lot better than VHS. Some people rent their cable company's DVR and record from that to a PC via the 1212.

This is where budget constraints come in. I had to bide time myself and save nickels for a while, as most people do. I didn't have a BluRay player, my existing PC was already stacked up with capturing old tapes and other work, and the wife took control of it on occasion for her projects. So I built a cheapo HTPC just for the PVR (and bought the PVR for a mere pittance on Black Friday).

Most people think HDMI was developed to give folks all that great digital video and ease of connection they wanted. While the industry was at it, they threw in the very arcane copy protection scheme that they felt the public must be desperate for. Fact is, the major major major reason the industry had for getting up HDMI was to keep folks from making copies of anything. Another fact is, HD video was already possible with component hookup or with DVI, without HDCP. In fact, too, HDMI could have worked without HDCP. So now we're stuck with these workarounds. And once you get a load of how many channels are sending out godawful ugly low-bitrate digital broadcasts, you'll see another reason for the digital transition -- lower, cheapskate broadcast standards from many program originators.

Well, at least you'll be able to get away from tape. Once you see how difficult it is to get a clean transfer from VHS then that, too, will convince you to move beyond it if nothing else will. A digital original, even at standard definition, will dance circles around VHS. When it comes to edits, etc., it's yet another vast improvement.

I think I will try the Elgato and see how it works out. Thanks for all of the input from everyone. I know where to come to if I need more help later on.

Ok this is my last question for now. What is a good program that I can use to combine these recordings?

Advanced hobbyists tend to use specialized tools designed to do one or two specific things with great precision, rather than all-in-one apps that do everything but don't do anything particularly well. But if you're new, an all-in-one is the best place to start. Examples of more advanced and specialized tools, some free and some paid, are VirtualDub, Avisynth, HCenc, TX264, RipBot, AVS2VD, AnyAVCHD, ImgBurn, TMPGenc's dedicated tools for edits, encoding, and authoring, After Effects Pro, and that sort of thing.

Probably the favorite budget all-in-one is Vegas Movie Maker Platinum. Current version is 13 Platinum, sold by folks like Amazon at a nice discount. A free trial is available. Caution: you have to learn to use this stuff, no matter what you get. Other apps from Adobe, Cyberlink/Pinnacle, etc., are not so well favored, with Pinnacle being the pits. You won't need overkill like Vegas Pro, Adobe Premiere Pro, etc., and would never use any of its high-priced features. There are lots of running jokes about how people spend big-time bucks on Vegas Pro and Premiere Pro with no idea how to use them, tending to do nothing more with those big apps than they would with a $60 editor like Vegas Platinum.

Thanks. Last inquiry, for real. The Elgato lets me record in HD. I was sticking to 720p, even though my TV accepts 1080i. I would like to record in HD so one day I can have the recordings on blu ray, but I would also like to have them on DVD in case I play it somewhere that doesn't have a blu ray player.

I believe I have 3 options
1)Record in SD onto DVD
2)Record in SD and HD at the same time for each recording
3)Record in HD and downsample like you did

Maybe I'm just being too picky quality-wise and should stick with SD. I attached a pic of the defaults for SD. Should I leave it like that or increase/decrease the Mbps?

DVD and standard definition BluRay are usually interlaced, not progressive. HD BluRay at 1920x1080 29.97 fps is usually interlaced, although BluRay also includes a 1920x1080 standard for film-based material that is strictly 23.97fps progressive film speed. If you're recording TV shows that are movie-based, you'll have a problem with telecine video if you record to 1280x720p, which isn't really progressive if movie telecine is involved. The 1280x720 spec is for 59.97 progressive-only; there's no provision in the standard for that frame size for interlaced video. It would have to be downsampled and then interlaced. As for downsampling HD to SD: there are problems associated with that. The only really effective way to downsample is with Avisynth's tools. Most NLE's do a terrible job of it. At least Avisynth is free.

It depends on what you're recording. If the source is movie based, record at 1920x1080 interlaced or 720x480 interlaced. Anything you get off tape is going to be interlaced source. How a game console handles that, I'll have to leave up to the gamers. Games, I believe, are always recorded as progressive.

And in case you haven't seen the disc and encoding standards, you might as well have a look at them for future reference so you'll know where you're going.
NTSC/PAL BluRay and AVCHD: http://www.videohelp.com/hd#tech
PAL & NTSC for DVD: http://www.videohelp.com/dvd#tech
Tables of strict HD and SD coding/format specs for BluRay/AVCHD disc: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=154533

Yeah, I know, a lot of that stuff will look like ancient Chinese right now. But keep those links around. You'll know more once you get to working.

For DVD, there are some restrictions not found in most tables, but you'll encounter them with DVD encoders and authoring apps. For example, the maximum GOP size (Group of Pictures) for DVD encoding is 18 frames, whether it's progressive, interlaced, or telecined. To prevent problems, you're better off recording SD to DVD. Or record SD losslessly to the computer and learn to encode with an NLE. One gains nothing by recording SD material to HD -- it really doesn't look good at all.

Thanks for that. Luckily, I'm doing it the other way around. I'm recording from HD to SD. That was the last little thing I wanted to get feedback on. When I end up renting movies or tv shows, should I always try to get the HD version/ blu ray disc of it? Will it make the SD quality I'm recording look a little better if I'm capturing from an image that's in HD on my PS3? Or would the recording look the same if I'm capturing from a SD image that's on the PS3?

Some of the things I record I may not have a choice between SD and HD. For example, the show Smallville has many seasons and my friends may let me borrow the DVDs so I can get clips from it. In those cases, I may just borrow from friends if that means one less show/movie I will have to pay to rent for a day. Also, in your opinion, is 4.5 Mbps a good number to leave the recordings on for the capture device? Or would you raise/decrease that?

Scratch that last part when I asked about the 4.5 Mbps. The link you sent about the DVDs says dual layer, single sided DVDs hold like 7.9 GB instead of the advertised 8.5 GB. So at that 4.5 Mbps rate, which Elgato says is 2.1 GB/hour, if I had 3h30mins of recordings, that would be 7.35 GB. I wouldn't want to make that gap of leftover space any lower. I will just leave it at that and pray I don't go over.

4.5Mbps is a rather low bitrate, especially when you consider that most retail DVD's record for bitrates like 6MBps and BlueRay SD start at 8Mbps and up. Motion control and very detailed scenes at 4.5 Mbps look sloppy -- motion in VHS would look cleaner.

Trying to get too much video on even a dual-layer disc at low bitrates will look OK only with very pristine source material. Most of the stuff coming down the pike nowadays on TV is inferior quality to begin with. Remember how much better a tape looked recorded at SP instead of EP? The differenvce between high and low bitrates is similar, if not more obvious. But you'll find out soon enough.