I have a Computer Question.... How can I Transfer my VCR tapes to DVD?

self ^ | 1-9-2002 | self

[kjam22]

http://www.dvdrecorder.philips.com/home.html

Phillips dvd recorder. Records television and records from VHS.

[bwteim]

I'm sorry to tell you that FR does not permit computer questions of this nature, or those on the merits or demerits of hardware and OS.... This thread will probably have to be removed....

;>)

[VOA]

bump!

[stylin_geek]

I would add, the speed you get firewire vs USB is immaterial, in that this would only matter if you were downloading and writing to DVD in real time. You could wind up with all kinds of buffer overrun/underrun problems...but I digress. Most capture programs capture the video or sound to disk, then convert it to a digital format, then write it to the media of your choice. Which means that the only thing affected by USB vs. Firewire is how fast you can write to your disk in the initial capture phase.

[Rain-maker]

No degradation?...not possible, since your transfering an analog signal to a digital format. You'll need to look for a video capture card.
(note*:Capturing high-quality video can eat up 2MB or more per *second* of video
at full resolution (640x480x24 at 60 fields per second for NTSC. You might want to look into a DVD r/w instead)

Links for U:

http://www.vcdhelp.com/capture.htm
http://www.videoguys.com/jump.htm
http://www.techtv.com/callforhelp/answerstips/story/0,24330,3308675,00.html
http://www.b-way.com/Broadway/broadway.htm

[js1138]

, but the capture speed is entirely dependent on the speed of the recording device (hard drive).

Something has to do video compression, either the video capture card or your CPU. A few years ago the chip that does real-time mpeg2 compression cost a thousand dollars in OEM quantities. I suspect this is a LOT cheaper now. I haven't kept up on pricing, but it's possible that current high end CPUs can do it.

[SunStar]

There are a lot of companies providing such services on the web, including this one -- VHS2Disc.com.

[Night Hides Not]

LOL!!! 'Instructions, instructions? We don't need no steenking instructions!'

[ArrogantBustard]

I can fit a single 30-min VHS-C tape on one CDR, I think it goes to about 40 minutes or so total. If you want to record a full length feature film, you'll have to use multiple CDs.

AB

[ArrogantBustard]

you'll have to use multiple CDs.

Or buy a DVD writer...

[Harrison Bergeron]

"Capacity of VCD. Will it hold a 1, 2, 3 hour movie?"

At 20Mb per minute, a 600Mb CD will hold 30 minutes of MPEG-2 video.

[Harrison Bergeron]

"Something has to do video compression, either the video capture card or your CPU."

I went round and round on this before I fully understood it too. No matter how fast the capture card or the processor, you'll drop frames if the hard disk doesn't grab it to the video MPEG file in a timely manner.

[Delta-Boudreaux]

you'll have to use multiple CDs.

Or buy a DVD writer...

Just when I was thinking I knew what i was going to do.

[rockfish59]

watch it dead, D-B is compiling a 'list'!

[Mid-MI Student]

Your best bet would be to get a new iMac, with a super drive. For 1899. DVD-R disks are 5 bucks from apple.
And a Formac studio. For 399 or 999.

Very simple to use these to burn DVDs and import from tape.

[caspera]

I agree with those who say get a Mac and a DV bridge like the Hollywood DV bridge or the Sony DVMC-DA2. Certain Macs (such as the new iMac which has been much debated on FreeRepublic recently) are specifically designed to do exactly this - make DVDs from home videos.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

"For what it's worth I'd also get rid of that Win Me"

Why?

[Mid-MI Student]

As for personal videos, I'd be willing to bet that there will be a solution to that in a few years.

There is a solution to that today.

[TOMH1]

Do region codes get involved with any of this?

[js1138]

you'll drop frames if the hard disk doesn't grab it to the video MPEG file in a timely manner.

I seriously doubt this is a function of the hard disk. I can rip a CD (600 megs) to my rather ordinary hard drive in a few minutes. This is equivalent to about 20 minutes (or more) of DVD quality video. Dropping frames has to be the result of an overloaded CPU, insufficient RAM, crappy operating system with poor memory management (any version of Windows not based on NT) or all of the above.

If the video capture card doesn't cost several hundred dollars it is probably requiring the CPU to do a lot of work, for which it isn't really designed.