100 Hours of Vintage Racing Video Transferred to DVD

Customer’s Prized VHS Racing Collection Digitally Archived

One of AV’s longtime customers, Bernardo M., dropped off his treasured Vintage Racing VHS Archive to be converted to DVD. These tapes accumulated over a 10 year period, with Bernardo recording every season during the 1990s – 2000s. Bernardo cherished these recordings, as they held the memories of some of the best races of all time! These VHS tapes were challenging for AV to work with because they were recorded in the EP (6hr) mode, which allows for numerous quality issues – including low quality picture, instability, tracking errors, video dropout, and noise. However, AV has the best knowledge and equipment to take on these challenges.

Our Video Conversion Process:

1) Video Stabilization
AV uses S-Video cables which separate luminance and chrominance (Color from Light). This allows details / edges to be as defined as possible. The footage is also stabilized with a TBC to minimize unstable video and deliver a rock solid image.

2) Audio Enhancement

On VHS tapes we capture the normal audio channel instead of the Hifi channel. This is because the normal audio is a dedicated channel and not disturbed from video dropout. Next, we raise the gain to approx -6db and apply noise reduction to elevate the audio!

3) Video Editing
We trim the beginning and end of every video removing unwanted dead air and TV snow. As a result, you only see the recorded portion of your tapes.

4) Encoding / Output
We maximize the bitrate of every DVD Conversion to allow for the best quality end-result.

AV processed the beloved video tapes through our newly upgraded video transfer equipment. Each AV machine room has been recently updated with a large number of high quality JVC S-VHS VCRs. These VCR decks are the highest quality and most reliable playback source for VHS / video tapes, most notably for VHS tapes recorded in EP. High Quality JVC S-VHS decks contain a built in TBC and Video Stabilization filter to stabilize a weak and unpredictable video. After the VHS tapes were converted to digital, we installed Level Optimization and Noise Reduction to the audio. Lastly, the videos were edited to take out TV snow and unwanted footage from beginning to end. As a result, every DVD was entirely racing!

Once the videos were edited, we created individual DVDs optimizing the bitrate capabilities of every disc. This allowed up to two hours of high quality content. We went the extra mile and tried to make an exclusive DVD for each race when possible. Finally, we labeled and compiled the DVDs into a single DVD Binder!