Tech Forum

Is there any way possible for the church to provide VHS tapes in DVD format? I wanted to show a video on "Family Home Evening Video Supplement 2" (Temples are for Eternal Covenants) at someone's home who only has a DVD player. This was for a Temple Preparation class I was teaching. It doesn't look like it is on DVD.

An alternative is to provide it as a download link (if it is not too big) and members can burn a copy to DVD and take to church or to someone's home for a lesson.

I think we have reached a time when VHS players are disappearing.

I have this same problem in Brazil. Side by side my computer I have lots of Church DVDs and VHSs. Some VHSs I can "destroy" or do another destination because I have purchased the new DVD editions (Church release DVDs in Brazil since 2005), but a lot I can't do another destination because is unavailable in other format (and, of course, aren't sold by Distribution Services).

In Brazil we have another problem. Time by time Church releases DVD versions of old movies and programs in English for the USA and Canada market. This products isn't released in Portuguese and aren't sold in Distribution Services in Brazil. To say sincerelly, most DVDs released in Portuguese and sold in LDSCatalog aren't sold in Brazil!!!

I believe the old concept of release multilanguage DVDs (090 and 099 codes) is wonderful! If Church's Audio Visual Department can research Church movie files and begin to release old movies in "Home and Family Collection", for exemple, it will bring us with some interesting features now unavailable for years.

Even more interesting is that I found on a broadcast blog a couple of months back the note that the last box of video tape left the factory just about a year ago, in October 2008, so video tape is no longer being made.

Here in the States the distribution stores are going begging trying to get rid of the stocks of videotapes of Church materials, but no one's taking them even though the price has been dropped to half or more than half.

I also noted the lack of language versions of about half the DVDs that the Church has put out to replace the VHS tapes. Also no word on how to get language DVDs other than English and Spanish of General Conference since they discontinued the 16-language version this year.

And an amusing aside, found an old Betamax tape of some Church stuff at a DI here a few months back, they haven't made that stuff since the late 80s.

JamesAnderson wrote:Even more interesting is that I found on a broadcast blog a couple of months back the note that the last box of video tape left the factory just about a year ago, in October 2008, so video tape is no longer being made.

I think if you check, you'll find that was the last pre-recorded video tape. Blank tapes are still being made.

Likewise, I'm sure you've seen that Kodak has discontinued Kodachrome. But Kodak is still making film, they just discontinued an outdated and little used line.

But the handwriting is on the wall. Clearly, video tape is on it's way out.

omega0401 wrote:Is there any way possible for the church to provide VHS tapes in DVD format? I wanted to show a video on "Family Home Evening Video Supplement 2" (Temples are for Eternal Covenants) at someone's home who only has a DVD player. This was for a Temple Preparation class I was teaching. It doesn't look like it is on DVD.

An alternative is to provide it as a download link (if it is not too big) and members can burn a copy to DVD and take to church or to someone's home for a lesson.

I think we have reached a time when VHS players are disappearing.

There are a lot of products out on the market that can be used to convert VHS to DVD. I have had various results with each product. The worst was a Panasonic VHS and DVD combo unit. Sound would drop out and the picture was horrible. The best luck I have had was with an ATI All-in-Wonder Pro board on my computer. I also had a lot of good luck with the Neuros OSD too. Once I made it digital, it didn't take much to get it into a DVD format. Obviously there are concerns about copyright and things of that nature, so it will be wise to find out what the law has to say about it.

It's because we will like better if Church release these productions (can be in a pack, like "Church History" DVDs

My understanding is that if you own a copy of a dvd/movie/game/anything else protected by intellectual property laws, you are legally entitled to make a backup copy as long as it is for personal use and you don't distribute it. I can't see why choosing to keep that copy on a computer or dvd instead of tape would make any difference, especially since tape is getting harder to find now. It just makes sense.

We have been slowly going through all our vhs tapes and using a video capture/tuner card to save them all to the hard drive of our media pc. Biggest problem is we have hundreds, and they all have to be watched in real time to do a capture, unlike dvds that can be backed up at much faster than real time depending on your processor and video card.

jltware wrote:My understanding is that if you own a copy of a dvd/movie/game/anything else protected by intellectual property laws, you are legally entitled to make a backup copy as long as it is for personal use and you don't distribute it. I can't see why choosing to keep that copy on a computer or dvd instead of tape would make any difference, especially since tape is getting harder to find now.

Be careful when making these kind of generalized statements. Intellectual property copyrights, of which I am assuming you are refering when you say intellectual property laws, vary considerably based on the level of protection the owner is trying to achieve. You need to read the particular copyright for the medium/product you wish to copy. The U.S. Copyright office describes in lay terms their position on the doctrine of "fair use". Sections 107 to 118 of the Copyright Laws of the United States state the legal description and limitations of fair use. The interpretation and disagreement between the music and movie industries over fair use sparked the ongoing legal battles around the DRM (digital rights management) issue. Copyrights also vary from country to country.

When it comes to copyrights it is best to refer to the copyright that accompanies the medium/product for the permissible use that applies.

My seven adult children and their families each want digital copies of our family memories archives. To fulfill their request, I have digitized over 3,000 35mm slides, burned these images to DVDs and distributed them the family members. Now, they want me to convert (the best parts of) more than 100 of our family memories on SVHS, VHS and Hi-8 tape to standard or high-definition, 16:9 (wide-screen) DVDs. Is this a wise approach for the future or are there other options we should consider (such as Blu-Ray, distribution on hard drives, the Cloud, etc.)?

The Church seems to have always taken a well-considered approach to multi-media. The decisions made as to what formats will have the longest-term value as technology comes and goes, seem to have panned-out well. Can you point me to some source to guide our efforts? I want our material to have the best chance of surviving physical deterioration as well as technological obsolescence.

I totally agree with you... As I didn't have another option I started using my DVD recorder in order to save my VHS on DVD. It took me some time but now I have all my VHS on DVD's.