vcr-dvd camcorder-dvd?

[karent]

Hi. I have a vcr, a digicam and various dvd burning apps on my PC. I want to convert vhs tape to dvd. Can I record to digicam then transfer via firewire to dvd on the PC? In short, what is the easiest way to get our vhs collection from tape to dvd? Ta.

[metla]

As far as i know you can use your digicam to re-encode the anologe signel from the vhs into the computer on the fly.

Indeed,Many people recomend this as the preferred way of doing so,As long as your cam has av inputs you shoulkd be able to tranfser the vhs signel with excellent results.

www.dvdrhelp.com probally has a faq on the subject,and if not a seacrh of their forums is bound to turn up some results.

[karent]

So, the idea is hook up the VCR to the digicam and the digicam to the PC firewire port, push play on the VCR and capture direct to the PC? No "recording" to the digicam first? Once the video has been captured, I assume I can use Ulead or Sonic or Nero to create a DVD? It seems pretty easy (without actually trying it). Do you have any idea how long it might take to capture, say, an hour of vhs and how much space I will need on the PC?

[metla]

Indeed, that is the theory.

Personally I feed an old analogue camera into a capture card so I am of little use as to the finer points of using a cam to convert the analogue signal into digital and capture it onto the harddrive

However, it will be done in real-time, an hour of footage will take an hour to capture, as to space, that would depend on format used, and i know little about digital camera formats.......

[paulw]

KerenT.

The pass thru is the best method. Just be sure to remove the tape from the camcorder before you try to use the pass thru feature..

It's also best to convert the files from captured DV to DVD before you load them into the DVD authoring program..

[karent]

Pass thru? What? ?:| Remove tape? Convert DV to DVD? What? ?:| Please explain. ?:| Ta.

[godfather]

> Pass thru? What? ?:|

Pass the VHS signal through the Digicam.
Connect the VHS player to the digicam and the digicam to the PC.
Play the tape. Record the output from the digicam. It should show in the manual how the digicam is set to do this.

>Remove tape?

You do not want to record the VHS onto the digicam, so removing the tape stops that.

>Convert DV to DVD?

The video stream from the digicam should be recorded on the PC. Then using your supplied software, convert it to a DVD.

[xmojo1]

If you're willing to spend a little money you can buy a graphics card for your computer that supports VIVO, or Video-in, Video-out. What VIVO does is it allows you to connect your computer directly to your TV or VCR, and you can send the video signal either from your computer to your TV/VCR, or from your TV/VCR to the computer. Just like the video-in/video-out cable that connects a VCR to the TV.

What you do then is to play the VHS tape in the VCR and send the video signal to the computer. The video playback can then be viewed in your computer's video-editing software and recorded. A graphics card with good VIVO functionality can cost a hundred or more dollars, but if you spend much time with video and editing it will save you lots of time. It cuts out the step of recording the VHS tape to the camcorder beforehand.

Using my own experience in converting home video to DVD, 30 minutes of video roughly equates to 1GB of hard drive space using the MPEG format. Since a single-layer DVD holds 4.7GB of data, you can fit 2 hours of video onto a single DVD.

[metla]

The problem in that sugestion is that the pass-thru method will give better results(for example it locks the audio and video into the same timeframe,and dropped frames are not a concern) and he alrerady has all the required gear for it.

The camera does the exact same job as a quite pricy digital conversion box,somewhere in the 500 to 1000 dollar mark.

[Miami Steve]

> The problem in that sugestion is that the pass-thru
> method will give better results(for example it locks
> the audio and video into the same timeframe,and
> dropped frames are not a concern) and he alrerady has
> all the required gear for it.
>
> The camera does the exact same job as a quite pricy
> digital conversion box,somewhere in the 500 to 1000
> dollar mark.

Is that true, metla? I have a VIVO card (FX5900) but I also have a DV Camcorder. I'd be interested in knowing for sure which will produce the better results.

Cheers
Miami