Aussie Roswellian Embassy #12

[Katherine]

The relationships were well defined and real. Raw even.

It's a universal issue...loving someone you can't have because of differences...

[Shiri's beau]

I agree wholeheartedly. I am still waiting to have enough money saved to buy that huge HDD so that I can start remastering my Original Version Roswell episodes to DVD.

[Katherine]

HDD? What is that? If you don't mind me asking a dumb question.

[destiny2002]

Katherine I m glad you asked that question because i didnt know what it was either. but now i no i am not the only one who doesnt no what it is. thanks
Destiny

[Lily]

i assume hard disk drive? maybe
heehee i'm moving house at the moment and i just (last night) stumbled across a couple of old roswell tapes, i know what i'll be doing this sunday

[destiny2002]

Enjoy lol I have mine boxed up but I just might have to pull them out soon to watch the originals.

[Shiri's beau]

Yeah HDD = Hard Disc Drive. :P

You should dust off the old Roswell tapes! Watch the show as it should have been for DVD... I still have not gone past the first few episodes of season 1 for re-mastering, not enough Hard Disc Drive :P space.

[Shiri's beau]

I just figured out another more easy way to re-master and enhance the VHS tapes, you simply plug the VCR into one of the last two devices in this link -->http://www.threedoubleyou.com/videocopier.htm (and use the video filters it has for enhancing the picture quality) then plug that device into your stand-alone DVD recorder, press record on the DVD recorder and press play on the VCR - done.

[destiny2002]

thanks for the infor on that Shiri's beau. I looked at it some but havent really read the whole thing have you got your's coppied? if so let me no. thanks again.

[Shiri's beau]

I am still stuck due to lack of money to buy either a new HDD or the DVD recorder and enhancer - I need to get a new job first, one that pays the amount I am worth, unlike my current job where I am below minimum wage and everything else is getting much much more expensive - wage is not going up though, everywhere else yes, but at my work it is like the 1980s. :P I am looking for new work where I would earn at least an extra $7 per hour maybe more, then I can go head on with the VHS re-mastering. I mean, soon these Roswell tapes will be almost a decade old. But worse still, my old VHS home movies are 20+ years old! they need to be done first...and soon.

[Katherine]

I've been pretty good lately...I spent a whole night (3 hours or so) watching vids and clips of Roswell on youtube.

[destiny2002]

I watched some music video too. they are so great, I am thinking of making one too.

[Shiri's beau]

I have finally bought that big HDD and have been playing around trying to work out the editing again when I finally figured it all out! It is like when you have a 300 piece jigsaw puzzle and you have all the edges put together and most of the guts of it and up until then you had no clue what goes where except for random odd pieces. Then you suddenly see where all the remaining pieces slot into place, that is what has happened with me here. Now I can really start it.

[destiny2002]

so cool what kind did you get? I was thinking about getting one for christmas, and i wanted to know the best kind to get, plus one that isnt so hard to figure out lol. hope everything gose well. cant wait tio get mine done too lol. let me know how long it took to get it all done.

[Shiri's beau]

The HDD was relatively easy to prepare, it did it all by itself! It was a Western Digital 320gb one with its own small cooling fan inside it. You just plug it in and it installs the programmes that prepare it ready for use. Other than right clicking on it afterwards and changing its format from FAT32 format to NTFS format. Which you will need to do for copying your old VHS tapes. Because FAT32 HDDs can only store files up-to 4gb...which is way too small for capturing your old VHS tapes, only NTFS format HDDs can have files bigger than 4gb. You will also need a capture card on your computer, either as a card or as an external USB-2.0 one as I have. You will also need VirtualDub freeware (above version 1.4) downloaded.

Use the capture programme that came with your capture card (or use the one built into VirtualDub) or even use WinAvi to capture your VHS to your HDD. Capture it without using any filters, just copy it as an exact copy of your VHS with no enhancement done to it using the filters. One hours VHS footage will take up somewhere between 10gb and 40gb depending on which capturing programme you are using and what your settings are. You must use the video resolution that the VHS is, if you are PAL use PAL-VHS resolution, or if you are NTSC-VHS, use its resolution. Go to the VirtualDub web site for detailed explainations, the VirtualDub programme itself lacks detailed explanations to my standards imo. After it is on your HDD, then you will need to open up your VirtualDub software and click the open up a file option, click on your captured tape you just did, you will see two black squares on your monitor, the one on the left is the original untouched, grainy VHS original you just captured. The one on the right is what it will look like after you add various filters to it for re-mastering. I have found that using Temporal, Deinterlace, Smoother, Brightness/Contrast Adjustment & Levels re-adjustment (this filter fixes your video if it is too-bright or too-dark, you do it manually with preview-you use your left/right arrow keys to move back/forward frame by frame) These work the best imo. With smoother you can view preview to see how it will look depending how much you add smoothing to the video. Don't smooth it too-much or it will look blurry as hell! Do just enough to get rid of some graininess, not all graininess, other filters will fix most of the remaining graininess. Then you start the encoding of the re-mastered VHS captured copy you made. Once done, you will see how much better it looks compared to your original tape.

I am also doing this for my old 20+ year old VHS home movies, they need more work done than the above though because they are older and more degraded, not as bad as some people's home movies but still, age has not been kind to them.