Video capturing device?? What do you recommend??

[JahMessiah]

I have a lot of moves on VHS cassettes witch I would like transfer to my PC and the burn on to DVDs!!! I0m wary now to all this, and I don’t have a slights idea for what to start looking and where to lock!! I was hoping someone could give me a few pointers and directions!!

My configuration is:

AMD Athlon 64 3000+
Asusa A8NPX Nforce 4 motherboard
Gigabyte nvidia 6600GT 128mb graphic card
Corsair 1 GB RAM

Thank you wary much!!

 

[NovemberWind]

ATI's TV wonder is OK. That'll at least get the job done, though it might not be great. I have an HDTV wonder, and was annoyed to discover it doesn't have any input jacks for HDTV - over the air HD signal only. The video from a device input (VCR/DVD player/cable) is a little grainy. But like I said, it'll get the job done. It could be that I'm just looking at the image on my LCD monitor operating at 1280x1024 and the image is 800x600, though I still think the recorded images are of lesser quality than the inputted signal.

I'm curious to hear what everybody else has to say about this. Especially if anybody has any insight into a card that can handle an HDTV signal input with decent resolution.

 

[sruane]

Do you have a firewire port on your computer and a DV output on your camcorder? All you need is a cable and some software, like PowerDirector.

 

[JahMessiah]

I'm not transferring videos from a camcorder, I want to transfer videos from my VHS cassettes using a VCR!!

I don’t have a firewire port!!

 

[sruane]

Well, then - I have an x1900xtx with an S-video input. I've used it to capture the video while routing the sound through my line-in port on my sound card. I have no experience with the 6600, but you may be able to do something similar.

You will still need software. PowerDirector is the only one I have any real experience with.

 

[s4fun]

I use the Hauppauge PVR-250 for regular TV recording normally, but it has done a fairly good job with the colors and such even for some tapes in real bad shape. Of course a good SVHS tape player will also help tremendously.

 

[Eurasianman]

Anything from Hauppauge. The more expensive, the better

 

[JahMessiah]

Its no good for me, I don’t have a video line in on my 6600GT!!

 

[Eurasianman]

WHA?! SO IT DOES WORK?!

I have an ATI X1900XT. I have the VIVO cable, but I don't know how to get it to work

 

[sruane]

WHA?! SO IT DOES WORK?!

I have an ATI X1900XT. I have the VIVO cable, but I don't know how to get it to work

Yes, it works. But you need capture software. Like, well, PowerDirector.
The videocard won't capture sound. For that you have to come in through your audio line-in, either on your moterboard or your soundcard.

 

[Eurasianman]

That's fine. Other quick question. If you input video through the card, can you have it full size? Like, for example, I wanted to play a game console using my desktop monitor, i could go through the ATI card and have it displayed onto the screen without having to buy the adapter for the console to be hooked up directly to the monitor.

 

[utaka95]

Hauppauge Win tv-150 and their software for the capture.
Then Nero Vision for the DVD conversion/burning.

Gives professional results - only cost me $55 for the Hauppauge card at Newegg.

 

[sruane]

That's fine. Other quick question. If you input video through the card, can you have it full size? Like, for example, I wanted to play a game console using my desktop monitor, i could go through the ATI card and have it displayed onto the screen without having to buy the adapter for the console to be hooked up directly to the monitor.

Capture and Playback are two different things. You can play it back at whatever size you want.

 

[jjw]

Hauppauge Win tv-150 and their software for the capture.
Then Nero Vision for the DVD conversion/burning.

Gives professional results - only cost me $55 for the Hauppauge card at Newegg.

Similar setup, Works good. My only complaint is getting the drivers to work in Win2K.

 

[horstmann]

THIS will be less work and cheaper than a card and software. Recording VHS onto your computer and having it look good is a pain in the a$$. Save yourself the headache and let this do it for you.

 

[jjw]

THIS will be less work and cheaper than a card and software. Recording VHS onto your computer and having it look good is a pain in the a$$. Save yourself the headache and let this do it for you.

Yeah, and with best buy's 30 day return policy you can take the thing back if you get it done quick enough. :twisted:

 

[JahMessiah]

Ahh it looks like the best idea so far, if there wasn’t a slight problem that I also have films on BETA cassettes!! I didn’t mention BETA cassettes because I didn’t want to bug with the details!! So this Toshiba doesn't do the trick for me!! Thanks for your advice!!

 

[horstmann]

Anything you can get to show up on your TV can get passed through this box. It will record TV shows that go through it, so just hook up your beta player to it and press record.

 

[Bruxbox]

Jah

I think Sruane was suggesting that you could use a miniDV camcorder to do what you want.

You put your VHS tapes in the VCR. Connect the VCR to the miniDV camcorder with a regular composite/svideo cable, as the case may be. Connect the miniDV camcorder to the computer with a 1394/Firewire/iLink cable.

This method of converting analog VHS video to digital video on the computer probably gives the best results with virtually no loss in video quality. This is so because, when the analog video from the VCR hits the miniDV camcorder, the analog video is converted to digital video, and it records directly to the computer's hard drive uncompressed. After you have the digital video on the harddrive, you can do the editing, authoring, and burning to blank DVD disks with software like WinDVD Creator.

Of course, you can't use this procedure because you say that you don't have a 1394 port. That's unfortunate. Note that some miniDV camcorders do not have an analog in port.

 

[joefriday]

Get the Winfast TV2000 xp Expert. Great capture card for ~$50. Among it's many other options, it allows you to capture your VHS/Beta Max tapes straight to DVD or a DVD image (ISO). If you'll be putting multiple tapes on a DVD, it will allow you to record up to 4 hours of footage onto 1 DVD, and makes a new title menu icon for each VHS tape you record (or everytime you start and stop recording). Once you close the Winfast capture program, it finalizes the DVD. Honestly the fastest, easiest way to transfer VHS movies onto DVD, The Winfast TV2000 XP expert is one of the best capture cards out there.

 

[JahMessiah]

Thanks joefriday!! I looked up this card on the net, it has got good reviews and it is easy to be found in my country (Serbia)!! That is the Leadteck product, right? I will probably go for her!!

@BruxBox, I don’t have a miniDV camcorder and it is too expensive from me to bye, do that solution is also not good!! The best ways is a god cheep capturing card, like one joefriday mentioned!!

 

[bberson]

I've been using my ReplayTV box, then using software called DVArchive to download it in MPG format to my PC. It's already in MPEG2 at that point but I can edit it and happen to have Adobe Creative Studio to do the rest. You don't need to be so fancy.

I thought of using the ReplayTV after getting absolutely miserable results from my ATI All in Wonder 8500, which lacks a hardware encoder. That's really the key thing. Whatever you get, make sure it utilizes a hardware encoder. The cheaper cards rely on software and just cannot perform as well.

Another angle is if you have a Mini-DV video camera that supports NTSC to DV transcoding. Plug the VHS into the camera and then plug the camera's firewire into the PC to download it for editing and burning to DVD. Not all cameras support this however. My eight year old -TRV8 does.

Finally let me point out, make sure you use a good quality playback deck for your tapes. You don't want to chance the deck eating your tapes or damaging them, but also you'd be surprised at the difference in quality among decks. I mean, you would think that with VHS being 30 years old now, that it would be simple for everyone to build a top-notch machine but comparing our Sony Hi-Fi deck to a Go Video deck we have, well, I just tossed the Go Video into the recycling bin. Woof.

-Brad

 

[mrmez]

Dood, just chill out and 'download' them in vcd format.

Will prob be slightly better quality the vhs anyway, and u wont have the grief of playing thru every movie, and maxing your cpu converting on the fly, or worse, dumping to hdd and converting later.

So get that broadband cranking, Q a few dozen files up and leave it on overnight.

werd.

 

[nukemaster]

VLC can play off video in @ full screen...but there is a slight delay....so lets say you want to play DDR.....your screwed....we tried some games at a lan.....with no luck....