I use an ATI card with video out to put rendered AVI's onto VHS. It looks pretty good, IMHO. You'd need to hook your soundcard up to your VCR though. SVCD/VCD sounds like a good option, but I'm not sure if all DVD players would alow you to dub SVCD-VHS because of the Macrovision protection.

Butm vegas makes nice SVCD's though. :)

there is no macrovision on any svcd (or vcd) - if you were using your own content

Happy,

I also have an ATI AIW with video out. How do you setup your video, output settings to make this work well?

Here's what SonicDennis wrote in another thread about it. I believe "miniDVD" is the same as SVCD (which is MPEG 2):

It's easy to make miniDVDs with DVD Architect, but it's not an official feature. Just "prepare" your DVD, then burn the data in the prepare directory to a CD-R disc using a 3rd party burning application, such as Nero. And don't use high bitrate video. Just please don't call our support department if you have any problems making these or playing them.

Read the whole thread here
Tor

Mini DVD is actually full DVD specs, but on CD instead of DVD, so it's higher quality than SVCD.

When I used to use SpruceUp to create these, you could also include email or URL links, plus documents or other files which opened up when clicked. It's a shame that this sort of functionality seems to have disappeared from "full blown" DVDs.

"email or URL links, plus documents or other files..."

this can be done on any dvd ...

cdvd's dont play in many standalones but will of course play on a computer ..

I spend a lot of time making both VCDs and SVCDs primarily because its all they have players for in China. Vegas will handle it no sweat and I've yet to come accross a DVD player that will not play either VCD or SVCD, guess most of them will also play miniDVD, its mainly a question of how high you want the quality and spend on the media.
To go out to tape I use my D8 camera to do the D to A, for a school this is not a bad format as the cameras are reasonably priced and also provide a reasonable way of getting analogue video in and out. Just check carefuly, I have a suspicion that Sony have droped this feature on the bottom of the range D8 camcorders.
You can also use them to play Hi8 and standard 8 tapes.
To actually make the VCDs with menus etc I use Nero but I think there's also a few freebies around that can do the job as well.
To make SVCD and DVD you'll need an MPEG2 encoder, you'll get that if you also buy DVDA or you can use TMPEGEnc which is my preference. Don't waste your money on the one for Nero, its woeful.

Hook the TV out to your VCR video in, enable the TV out in the control panel, then just play a video in media player, or another player (quicktime doesn't work). Normaly I spend a few minutes adjusting the screen size, position, color, etc.

For Vegas I output to 640x480 square pixel, or some multiple of. That seems to work great. I've transfered 2 videos from AVI to VHS. I've found that Divx is actuatly the best for this (because it playsback at full speed on my computer), but since I've started using Vegas 4, I've had to use other codec's. I wish Dvix would work all the time though...

If you want to distribute VHS, no reason to go to something in between, be it VCD, SVCD etc... With the exception of DVD, you'll lose some quality in the compression, and even with DVD, why bother with the longish render to mpg2? Once you have the video on your PC, edit it in Vegas, (if nec) render the project back to avi as motion jpeg or DV, and play the whole thing back to a tape deck.

To get the video out, if you originally shot in DV, usually can use the same firewire connection to your camera or convertor to go back out to analog output for your VCR.

If you don't have a DV path out, the easiest option is with an external scan convertor. These are generally developed for presentations on large TVs, and can be really quite good - still use my old ADS. The ones I've seen/used hook up between your PC and monitor. Cheaper yet, if you've got access to a laptop, many of those come with a TV out that can be quite good (certainly VHS quality).

Graphics cards with video out can vary greatly in quality, though in my experience both ATI & Matrox (bleh) work well. ATI cards work a bit differently if your using their AIW - non-AIW ATI cards IMO have a better video out setup.

With an AIW, you need to set up your cabling, enable the TV monitor in display properties -> advanced, then once you have a signal out with your desktop displayed on the TV, adjust the display so that you have overscan.

When using a graphics card TV out, some work off of the video overlay layer that windows uses when playing video - in those cases you just play back the video in whatever size player window you like. With others like the ATI AIW, you have to play back full screen, usually at something like 800 x 600 for your desktop.

In any case, need to check for overscan... A TV may display a picture of say 640 x 480, but the actual frame size is bigger both horiz & vertical - this was designed into broadcast spec to allow for differences in picture tubes. If your hardware does not overscan automatically, you have to do it manually (like on many AIWs) or else you'll get black bars bordering your picture on some TVs.

With a 1024 x 468 or 800 x 600 desktop, setting an AIW TV display, you want to center your image on the TV monitor, then go for something like a quarter inch larger on all sides - so a quarter inch of your desktop does not show up on all sides, or another way to say it, your desktop on the TV is 1/4 " larger then the TV display on all sides. With an AIW particularly, your desktop will appear distorted on your PC monitor - don't sweat it.

Tips: going to VHS, you might want to master at SVHS -> ecost.com had an SVHS deck on their countdown page for less then $75 recently. You might also have to invest in an amp or mixer (with an amp) to get sufficient audio levels out of your PC's soundcard for the tape deck.

Otherwise FWIW:
Using a mini-DV camera to convert Video on your PC to analog on your VCR as stated may not be supported on all cameras, or you may have to record to tape in the camera and then use the analog out etc. Most all cameras have some sort of analog out, but it may not function with the firewire etc.

If you're not running a version of windows with a NTFS drive, you may wind up with segmented avi files - your movie is split over a number of files. To play these back check out AVI_IO.

RE: mini DVD, or DVD on CD etc... Generally do not want to use DVD template specs unless you're doing shorts - increase the mpeg2 compression down to a bitrate between 900 & 1.5 usually. There are problems playing these on many DVD players - if your intending to play on PCs, try DiVX etc. for much better results. IMO and from what I've seen, popularity of this type of disc is fadeing.

To my knowledge it's still very possible to include urls etc. on authored DVDs - just not all authoring software supports it or supports it well. Many commercial DVDs rely instead on some included autostart program for PCs, providing a shell for the DVD player that also includes all sorts of IE browser windows with more then enough links etc. Spruceup to my knowledge had a lot of emphasis on that sort of thing because of the bundled player you distributed with DVDs authored in the program.

Should be able to playback on your PC and through the TV out on a graphics card etc. using about any format video file, if your PC can play the video well. If the data rate is too high for your PC to play it, and/or doesn't have the horsepower to decode the video fast enough (as with some lossless codecs), obviously you'll get poor results. IF you're using something like winmedia, and if you have to play the video full screen, this can become an issue - the wmplayer will lower the quality level of playback automatically if it thinks your PC is or might be having problems maintaining the set frame per second.