Transfer Files to VHS

gollum84 · #1 February 25th, 2004, 02:08 PM

I am in the process of sending a demo reel to an animation studio and it must be on a VHS format. I am planning on sending a flash animation that I created. My question is how I can transfer the flash movie to a VHS. I have a DVD burner, so I am thinking that I can convert the flash movie into a quicktime movie, burn that to a DVD-R and then record that onto a VHS. Is this even possible? Won't I get noise from trying to record from a DVD? Is there any other way to put a flash animation on a VHS?

I'm open for any suggestions.

Urbansory · #2 February 25th, 2004, 02:22 PM

Well unless you have a way to capture from a VHS, then you won't have a way to reverse that and print to tape, unless you hook up a dvd player and VCR, something i never tried either.

You better start on a few tests to see if playback is just like the orignal when you export it as a QuickTime movie. Match up your frame rates, or try different variations for the best quality and smooth playback.

I always used FCP when i needed to capture to a VHS, bt if you have a DV camera, you can convert the animation to a DV stream, print that to tape, then from there to a VCR, or hook up a VCR via RCA or S Video and grab it that way. Too many 3 letter combinations.

bobw · #3 February 25th, 2004, 02:30 PM

I have a combo DVD/VHS player. The DVD part only plays DVD, but the VHS side will record a DVD that I'm playing and it copies fine.

ksv · #4 February 25th, 2004, 02:34 PM

The best way to preserve the quality would be rendering the animation as DV, i.e. opening it in a DV editor like Final Cut (maybe iMovie will work too), and then printing it through a DV/analog adaptor hooked up to a VCR. Those adaptors are $200-300. The DVD way would also work, as long as the burner app doesn't specifically write a copyright signal.

mindbend · #5 March 1st, 2004, 12:43 PM

The real problem isn't so much in getting the movie to VHS as it is getting Flash to QuickTime (in any of its codecs). If your Flash is the slightest bit off spec, it won't render properly in QT. Any custom code, conditional scripting, certain nesting procedures, and lots of other things basically make it impossible to use QT for Flash. This is a real shame as it's screwed me over so many times wanting to render complicated Flash files for demos.

My work around has been to use Snapz Pro to do a screen capture of the Flash. On a good machine, you can easily get 30 FPS and make a gorgeous movie of your Flash file.