The Principles of Dubbing
Today, I want to talk about the principles of dubbing. First off, what is dubbing? Dubbing has many essences, but the overall idea is bringing data from one object and putting it onto another. In a sense, it’s copying.
Today, I will focus on one type of dubbing, video dubbing. Many of us have old VHS tapes. Some of us watch them, but the majority don’t. Maybe because it’s in the past and many of us don’t want to review the past, but sometimes it’s because tapes or bad or we don’t have VCR’s anymore. Well, let’s talk about what goes on during the process.
Before I go onto the process, we need to talk about the types of dubbing there are. In my opinion, there are 3 types of dubbing:
1-Pure hardware: This applies to any combination of recording directly from a VCR to a DVD recorder. In this day and age, we have VCR-DVD combinations that come with dubbing processes.
2-Hybrid: This applies to taking a VCR and somehow connecting it to a computer and digitizing that video.
3-Pure software: This, for the moment is not that common, but in the idea, you take one digital copy and copying it to another. The closest we have to this version is converting one video format to another and in a sense that is what it’s about.
Now, in the process you essentially play the video from one device and record it to another device. That’s the overview, but that’s actually just the last step. We can also set up the length of the recording and the quality of the images. We can tell how the quality would be because the quality of the image is directly correlated with the length we can record. The more we can record the higher the chances of dropouts (audio/video) occur and also since the recording process uses less time to record that image, it might become distorted.
The main modes are:
MODE Quality Max time
XP: Best 1hr
SP(normal): Very good 2hr
LP: Good 4hr
EP-6: Fair 6hr
EP-8: Poor 8hr
From the table above, I highly recommend SP, but if you absolutely need more time, use LP. Try to prevent using EP-6 and at all costs avoid EP-8. Remember the technology behind VHS wasn’t of high quality to deal with from the start.
Now, let me talk about hybrid dubbing. Why do it? VHS tapes and DVD’s due tend to get scratched or damaged and having a digital copy on a flash drive or the computer allows you to keep it safe. Why not do it? If you lose those files, they are quite difficult to get back and you can’t play them on the television unless you put it onto a DVD yourself and at that point why not just get it on DVD to start with.
The most common type of dubbing is pure device because of the fact that many of us want to just watch our VHS tapes on DVD. But what exactly can we do with this? Before you start doing this on your own or have someone else do it for you, you should know few things. Even though we can’t really edit the already developed images, we can edit the way that we put the recordings together. For example, you have two tapes in a series and you want to watch them back to back. You are able to record it on one DVD (remember the table above). What about if you don’t want a particular scene or time frame re-recorded? Yes, you can edit that part out by pausing/stoping the DVD recording, fast-forward on the VHS tape, and then start the recording again on the DVD. There is only so much that we have control over during the editing process, but there are certain things that we can do, so ask the person dubbing about what THEY are able to do.
The final step, how much would it cost and where can I get this done? In more cases you are able to do it yourself, but if you have MANY tapes to do, it’s probably better to pay someone else to do it for you so that you make sure it’s done correctly and you have your mind off of it. Most local IT companies will do it for you and some even specialize in the process of dubbing. The charges vary from company to company and most companies do not share their prices in public. Just call and ask them if they do it (make sure you feel comfortable with their ability) and how much they charge. How much is it worth? It all depends on how much it’s worth to YOU. Personally, (if I wasn’t able to do it myself), I wouldn’t even consider paying $20/tape and make sure they don’t charge by the hour because the dubbing process depends on how long the tape is. For example, if a tape is 2 hours long and the company charge $20/hr that’s at least $40/tape. If you have multiple tapes that could cost you hundreds of dollars and at that point, they are just stealing the money for you because they don’t even have to do that much other than set it up and let it run. Make sure they charge by tape and they don’t charge $20 or more per tape. Just as a note, keep in mind that a SET of 100 DVD’s is about $40, which if you calculate that per DVD is $2.50. The general price rage should be between $5-$10 per tape. $10 is the absolute max price per tape.