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  #1  
09-02-2017, 08:49 AM
jwillis84 jwillis84 is offline
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Hey,

I am coming up on a couple weeks as a new forum reader, and just joined as a Premium member. I started out ( with an attitude, and a "bit know it all" ) but the more I read the more I am humbled by all the experience and knowledge being shared through these forums.

I've even made some fairly large rash decisions recently that I'm attempting to recover from.

To avoid as much personal pain as possible.. I was hoping there might be some formal or informal VHS capture or transfer workshops, clubs or maybe a convention special interest group.

Doesn't have to be super organized.

Do any of the remaining transfer shops have like an open house once a year or something? It would be really fun and useful to listen and share a few war stories or opinions. An evening in a coffee shop would be cool.

.. and maybe I'm sounding ridiculous.. I am so aware now that there is so much perspective on the whole subject that I do not have.

Thanks for anyone's reply
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  #2  
09-02-2017, 09:45 AM
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lordsmurf lordsmurf is offline
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For privacy reasons alone, not to mention security, I highly doubt it.

When I worked for studios, even the front door to the building required passkeys. If you had a meeting with somebody, they'd buzz you in, and you'd wait in the front room until greeted and escorted to the meeting room. You needed more clearances to get into rooms that actually had content. Only the warehouse with final DVDs/Blu-rays was less secure -- meaning non-employees had access, the delivery folks, as they'd grab pallets of discs.

What exactly are you wanting to know?
Maybe an overview of how average projects are handled?
Something else?

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  #3  
09-02-2017, 10:00 AM
jwillis84 jwillis84 is offline
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Wow.. thanks for the reply

I can see that after some thought.

I've had some great experiences attending programming or software setup conferences where "experienced" users would be more informal and share their experience using one language or software suite or another. This changed from version to version, from year to year.. so keeping up to date was a matter of checking back in from time to time.

Until you mentioned it I forgot about the sensitive nature even home VHS tapes might contain. I got overly concerned with the process and forgot about the content.

.. gosh.. I just need to keep reading more for a while

Last edited by jwillis84; 09-02-2017 at 10:25 AM.
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  #4  
09-02-2017, 11:15 AM
sanlyn sanlyn is offline
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@jwilis84, what you propose as an interest group for capture and restoration isn't a bad idea IMO. But I could never find a good one. I attended a couple lectures at a local movie club and even paid a bit for a college extension course of a couple of weeks. In truth, what I learned wasn't very much. I learned the basics of capturing, that was about it. Much of what I learned was low-tier nonsense that turned out to be poor advice.

I came to this activity knowing little more than how to turn on my computer and use a mouse. The rest came piecemeal from Google and AltaVista (remember that?), one website link at a time. In truth, it took about a week for me to get a handle on what was involved. I joined four video forums (including this one) and picked up the rest by browsing every post in sight over the next several days. In retrospect, considering what I know know and use, that wasn't a lot of time. Armed with all this knowledge, such as it was, I went to the biggest video shop in town and bought a new PC with an ATI capture card in it (it had a "huge" 32MB video memory chip!!!), a Cyberlink software suite ( a mistake), a cheap VCR ( mistake #2), a DVD player (I sill didn't own one), and some cables and blank discs.

Before long, I made a 15-minute MPEG capture of a movie broadcast on the USA channel, recorded via my ATI card and a cable box. I followed all of the notes and authored and burned my first DVD. Shoving that DVD into my player, I waited anxiously for the results. The DVD player considered the disc for several long seconds, then silently spit it right back out at me with nary a message or beep.

I'd say it took another day or two of scouring video sites before I resolved my errors. The video played, but I didn't like the results. Then I began looking into forum posts more critically and with dead seriousness about how to get quality video out of my efforts. After a few weeks I gathered enough info and software and filters to know more about how to get what I wanted. I made samples of video captures and submitted them to forums, and there the experts got hold of me and -- whether politely or impolitely as the case might be -- I improved my eye and my use of equipment, not to mention the efficiency of things like workflow.

It didn't take as long as I initially thought it would. In the end it came down to learning the basics from experienced sources and using common sense to manipulate what I learned from their experiences. There was lots of experimentation involved as well, some fruitful, some a waste of time (unless you don't consider learning a waste of time), but it was 100% hands-on and checking the results. In short, most people here pick it up task by task, learning from what others have done, and being curious as to what it's all about. My wife thinks its a form of madness. Maybe she's right. But I'm usually pleased with the results, and so is she.
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  #5  
09-02-2017, 07:04 PM
jwillis84 jwillis84 is offline
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Lol.. it spit it back at you.

Now that's what I'm talking about..

Thank you so much, that story was thoroughly satisfying. And it was very constructive and instructional.

Each discipline is bound to have a "best" way to approach it and only experienced individuals are qualified to point that out. The truth in the statements resonates with the evidence in the story. I am sorry you spent a lot of money and got little for it.. but you saved me money and reduced my blind enthusiasm to sign up for a generic extension course.

I really appreciate the detail you went into about how you arrived at your current set of opinions.

I also must confess I do enjoy reading the discussions of opinion about various topics between you and Deter or Lordsmurf. Just being in the forum audience makes me smarter.

If there isn't some kind of annual event in which a state of the union could be delivered.. or an update of opinion about various topics.. I guess the Guides will serve.

Thanks again.. that was so much fun to read.
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  #6  
09-23-2017, 03:46 PM
dinkleberg dinkleberg is offline
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This is the special interest group!

There are a few more resources:

doom9 is more centered on encoding
videohelp is kind of in-between both
and for when you want to sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor, there's avsforum!

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  #7  
09-24-2017, 02:06 AM
jwillis84 jwillis84 is offline
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Wow.. really nice introduction for the newbie

I appreciate the assessments.
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  #8  
09-24-2017, 03:41 AM
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lordsmurf lordsmurf is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dinkleberg View Post
This is the special interest group!
There are a few more resources:
doom9 is more centered on encoding
videohelp is kind of in-between both
and for when you want to sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor, there's avsforum!
Yep, indeed, that is true. This is the special interest group.

If you want to talk about archiving video, restoring video ... you're at the right place already.

If you want some more in-depth on other forums...

Doom9 was centered on the codec/encoder/software developers. Eons ago, it was about decompling and copying DVDs. Years dragged on, and it was more about ffmpeg, VLC, Avisynth filters, etc. It's where guys like Donald Graft, videofred, and trevlac hung their hats. But the site has somewhat imploded over time, due to weird public member meltdowns (neuron2, doom10, etc). Still a great resource, but mostly for posts/threads of the past. Several members left for VH in the 2010s, which is why you see more Avisynth talk there now.

VideoHelp was VCDHelp/DVDrHelp, and mostly about copying DVDs to VCDs, then DVDs to DVDs. It was mostly my presence there (I was a mod for a few years), and other professionals of varying career age, that took it into capturing/restoration topics. BJ_M, gshelley, edDV, etc. But after the era of DVD recorders and capture cards (2000s), the site became mostly about downloading video (Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, Youtube, whathaveyou), and many left the site due to lack of interest. 10+ years ago, I was there a daily; now it's monthly. For a while there, the site was full of really lazy bastards that wanted software with an "easy button" -- wanting help using the cheap all-in-one software that sucked at everything. I remember the days where 1 page of threads was 1-2 days worth; now it's almost a month's worth.

Doom10 disappeared. It was mostly about ffmpeg, VLC and Avisynth, like Doom9. The name was always stupid. That place imploded due to weird wacky drama by the admin. We offered to archive the site, but never got a response.

KVCD was archived by us. Kwag (Karl Wagner) had left, and the new admin didn't want to pay for it anymore. KVCD was always a dumb "format" (not a format), aimed at ultra-compressing MPEG for non-complaint VCDs (therefore xVCDs), but the site had a lot of Avisynth and encoding discussion. Some of it is quaint now, but traffic logs show it still has value.

Afterdawn was always about copying DVDs, and never really strayed into other video topics. It's pretty dead these days, for the DVD/video topics.

CDfreaks was about optical media, then became MyCE where CD/DVD/BD wasn't the focus of the site anymore. In past years, the conversations tended to be dominated by trolls that had some wonky ideas about the value of scanning media. The CDfreaks>MyCE change pissed off members at the time, and oddly that's when the trolls seem to have left. These days, it's pretty friendly, if you're into advanced optical disc topics. Since this is honestly a post-disc era, it's really niche now, and even I don't visit there often.

WrigleyVideo disappeared. We tried contacting the owner for years, wanting to archive the site here. It had lots of good info on NLEs, capturing, etc,

CreativeCow was a great resource for NLEs, though too cluttered with obnoxious ads. Most NLE software now has their own forums, like the Adobe Forums, so CC is pretty sparse now.

AVSForum has always been great for DVD recorders, as well as TVs and DVD/BD/media players. Occasionally VCRs. Just note that the place had 1-2 trollish members in the 2000s, on recorder/VCR topics. Their posts are rife with incorrect information. I think almost all of the VCR topics are 10+ years sold now, and most DVD recorder topics are now about repair (with the owner usually being told he/she's SOL) or magically adding HD-era features.

Then you have some hardware/software-specific sites, like the Corel forums. Forums like that have a short lifespan, lasting only as long as they hardware or software does. Some are still around a ghost towns, many are gone. Few new ones pop up in the era of Facebook.

Remember, I've been around for a few years.

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- For sale in the marketplace: TBCs, workflows, capture cards, VCRs
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