I copied my home movies from VHS to DVD on my DVR, and it saved them as video TS and Video RM files,?

Question

now I want to save to my Computer and edit them. How do I do that?

Answer 1

Generally speaking, those files aren't meant to be edited.  The ideal way to do it would of been to capture the VHS to your computer first, then put it to DVD.  Putting it DVD first lowered the potential quality of the final outcome. However, understandably if you don't have and don't want to buy a video capture device for your computer.. this was a viable alternative.

But to get to your question... those files are going to need to be converted to editable computer video files... which in most cases means AVI files.  Some editors support other file types, but AVI is the standard... but make sure it's DV-AVI... not DivX or any of the other codecs out there.  The best way to do all of this is probably to get a program that will rip the whole DVD to your computer using AVI... rather then copying the TS and RM files over to your computer and converting them individually.

Download.com is a whole lot of free options for all sorts of things, including file conversion and DVD ripping.   Here's at least a partial list of DVD ripper utilities off download.com. Mind you only some are free.. others are free trials that you'll need to eventually pay for to keep using (some may even restrict your usage during the trial).

http://www.download.com/3120-20_4-0.html...

If you want select "free" on the filter controls to filter out everything that's not entirely free.  Again.. you'll be looking for a program that can rip to DV-AVI... if not perhaps another file type your editor can handle... for instance if your using Windows Movie Maker, you can use wmvs... if your using iMovie.. maybe .mov would work for you. DV-AVI will work on ANY editor though.

Hope this helps.