Vhs to Dvd hardware

Has anyone any experience of buying hardware that transfers Video tapes to DVD? I am looking to buy something very soon that you can put the tape in and transfer from analogue to digital via the PC and then burn to DVD.

I am aware that you can send tapes to mail order companies and they do it for you, but i would prefer to be able to edit them myself and make copies for family.

Thanks

G

 

What you're looking for would be a video capture card. If you take a look at the offerings here:http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Description=video+capture+card
You'll see a wide range of choice price and performance wise. Also you'll see choices for just capture cards or capture cards with tv tuners as well. Whatever you decide just make sure it has the proper connections for hooking you VCR up to it......

 

I use a video capturing system from Pinnacle called "Dazzle"
The capture is achieved through a USB 2 connection. It works very well and comes with a super editing program called "Studio" (very similar in design and capabilities to Adobe's Premiere).
If you want to simply copy your VCRs to DVDs without editing, there are many stand alone products that double as VCR and DVD players.
These are totally independant of a computer.
Amazon has a large collection of them as do most BigBox stores like Circuit City.
ie.
http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&ke...dr-20&index=electronics&ref=pd_sl_8xlbrarhc_b
A note of caution: If you opt to buy a used combo unit be certain that it includes the original remote.
Without a remote most of these units will not allow you to "finalize" the DVD after you have recorded it; making it only usable on that machine.

 

Thank you for the kind advice I will look into both of your suggestions.
G

 

You're welcome..... One thing to note: external units work ok. But IMHO I believe for overall performance and speed, A internal card is the way to go...
Also you do know that transcoding those tapes to digital is a VERY time consuming affair, right?

 

I have heard of some people having performance problem with external capture devices, but usually these have been incorrectly attached to USB 1.0 connections.
I create DVDs for my church at a rate of 2 per week and have transfered literally hndreds of VHS tapes to DVD using the Dazzle system, and have never had a problem.
Transfer of the VHS tapes takes excatly the time of the tape using the "Instant DVD Recorder" function in Studio.
It simply records the DVD while the VHS tape plays.

If you are intending to add menus and/or editing to the DVDs it does take a little longer. Your computer has to "render" nearly 30 frames for every second of video.
An hour long DVD takes my church's computer setup (a very modest 1.8 Ghz cpu and 1Gb of RAM) approximately two hours to render after all edits have been completed.

 

Nope I wasn't aware of this

 

I have been looking at a DVDR to VHS convertor which is about £200 ($400).
Dazzle is definetly something I am looking at though as the Camcorder i have has small cassette tapes in it, am I right in saying that you connect the camcorder to the Dazzle plug which then connects to the PC and the tape contents get converted using the Dazzle software?

Thanks
G

 

Yes that is correct

 

This is what I currently use to convert VHS to DVD.

http://www.plextor.com/english/products/convertx2.htm

*Note* VHS device and DVD device not included.

 

if you are looking for desktop, have you seen this new vedio card?

http://ati.amd.com/products/tvwonder650/pcie/index.html

I have 2 year tv wonder elite card came with box to hook up rca plugs and s-video, it works ok. you are right it does takes time but if it is something you want, what is time.

could be something on 'e' for few bucks.

 

Thanks again for all your ideas/experiences I will let you know which hardware I get in the next week or 2

G

 

just curious, with the pinnacle usb part, do you have to use their software? or will some other software be able to use it?

 

You can use the Pinnacle USB interface device with any software.
The only problem I've ever experienced doing this was with a program called "InterVideo DVR3" (a recording program that acts like a VCR on your harddrive). For some reason it did allow the video to be captured through the USB but not the audio. That had to be input through the line in of the sound card.
I never did figure out why.