Preserve VHS before it's too late
Written: Feb 22 '02
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Pros: Burn VHS onto CD without a computer--also records music CD's from jacks
Cons: Real-time only; also, don't lose the instructions or remote
The Bottom Line: This machine will cost you half of bringing your home movies somewhere to get put on VCD or DVD. We have four!
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| el_gobierno's Full Review: Teraoptix TERAPIN Stand-Alone CD Video Recorder CD... |
The terapin video CD recorder is a real-time MPEG-1 VCD burner which can also record music CD's. The resulting movies are playable on modern DVD players. You do not need a computer to do either of these functions.The machine does not make SuperVCD's or PhotoCD's like the new ones can. But it is an old veteran, and very dependable.
Terapins do require a learning curve, they're a unique machine. They have multiple inputs for every type of video or sound recording situation. This can frustrate some users. The best way to perform the setup is to connect the terapin to a television screen and use the on-screen menu.
Most of time you will be recording NTSC Audio and Video thru the analog jacks in back. Occasionally you may use the terapin to burn vinyl phonograph records onto music CDR's, which requires a different setup. When setting up,take your time.
There are four of these machines in our family, purchased at various times, with prices ranging from 699 down to 499 USD. At the time we purchased them, doing movies on a computer was still tens of thousands of dollars. We bought them starting in the late nineties for the purpose of saving about 12 hours of family videotape over to VCD. This might sound silly at first, but VHS videotape starts to rot out after about seven years, and all our family movies had been transferred to VHS.
It didn't occur to us until later that mass duplication of VCD's is far cheaper faster and easier than 'running off' tapes. DVD ROM was still years away and even to this day is still expensive-- not worth the trade-offs of price and Big Brother in my opinion.
Burning real-time video to a CD on the fly is a demanding job, even if you have a computer. The terapin cuts thru a lot of the hassle of sychronizing audio tracks, splitting and editing movies, and naming the files and folders necessary to make VCD's work in a dvd player. It all happens in real time. The burner is only 1X. Build quality is fair, but if you are making multiple copies of the same tape you should have the original VCD duplicated on someone's computer to save wear and tear on your Terapin.
Because these discs are written on the fly, they need to be "packet written", which means that computer burners can only copy them as disc images. Most burning software out there can do this.
There are a couple idiosyncrasies that I've discovered with my machine and also my family's.
First off, they are fussy about which CD's they will recognize. The darker the CDR media, the better.
Secondly, when cold, they do not recognize the cheaper, lighter media. Now that burners are a consumer commodity, there is a lot of bad media being sold. For some reason the terapin is more tolerant of cheap media when warm. If I will be doing a lot of burning, I turn the box on an hour or two ahead of time, then feed it with cheap, garbage media. Then it recognizes them without any problems. If the job is important, I use name-brand media. Both Memorex and Maxell work fantastic.
Third, VHS tapes which have been converted from PAL/SECAM (foreignTV)on a converter, either by you or a movie studio, sometimes freeze up. This happens during extremely bright scenes and is not the fault of the terapin, it happens on computer video capture cards also. Timing information which is supposed to be in the TV picture either arrives late or is not present due to improper conversion. Many TV's can still display it, but computers have trouble locking onto it. Russian footage seems to do this the most.If this happens to you, buy a video stabilizer, like the Sima Copymaster SED-CM. These devices synthesize missing video information for between 50 and 100 dollars.
The machine is also unaffected by copy protection and will burn DVD over to CD. In my opinion, if this is all you want to use the machine for, you are wasting time and money, since a DVD drive and CDburner combined cost less than this unit and give a clearer 'rip'. Plus you need to sit there and babysit the terapin in order to pause the movie and change the disc--just buy the DVD for goodness sakes.But for putting a wedding onto a CD, the thing is unbeatable.
There are other VCD burners out there like Datavideo and Malata but the Terapin is oldest and the firmware has matured. We bought our first one in late 98 or early 99.
The other thing is the support. Terapin bent over backwards to help us solve the problems on their early models, and there weren't any on their later ones.Keep their number handy- I wrote mine on the back. You will need it if you lose the remote which is required for some setup functions.
When I bring these CD's to work people love them. They play right on Windows Media player, and it's like watching them on a TV. I remember when capture cards cost more than the terapin.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 499
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Epinions.com ID:
el_gobierno
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Reviews written: 1
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