Hello all, hopefully someone will be able to help me. So yeah, like the title says i want to transfer all my Hi-8 camcoder videos to DVD. I've been searching all over for tutorials and stuff, thing is every tutotial that i look at has different instructions. So i decided to come here and ask for personal help instead. I would like to know the equipment that i need(ei: video cards, S cables, programs, ect), and some easy to follow instructions for me to be able to get decent quality videos. I dont know if necessary but here are my system specs: Sony Vaio 1.7 Ghz 256mb ram 80 gigs of space 64mb ATI video card Any help is greatly appriciated.
Well the Most Important thing that you Need is a Capture Device and Since you don"t have an especially Fast system you should get one that uses hardware Compression as Your CPU is Just on the Borderline between being Too slow and Just fast enough to capture useing Software Compression so you Should go hardware Compression Just to be Safe and The Quality is better and you can do other things with your PC While Captureing and there are a Lot of Potential problems with software Compression Cards.... There are A Couple Good Hardware Mpeg Encoder cards (Mpeg-2 is the Format used to create DVD"s) in the Under $100 Range Like the [bold]"Hauppague WinTV PVR-150/250"[/bold] which Has a Built in TV Tuner so you can Tune in and Record TV Shows and it also has S-Video and RCA/Composite Inputs to Connect Hi8 Camcorders and VCR"s to, and it also has a Audio Input.... I believe The Card uses a 10 Bit decoder Chip so the Quality is pretty Good and it has a High Quality Hardware Mpeg-2 encoder Chip that Compresses the Video into Mpeg format and Transfers it to your PC"s HD and then you Just have to use a DVD authoring program to Put the Captured Files on to DVD..... Another One that I have Heard is really good is the [bold]"ATI Tul Theater 550"[/bold] which also has a TV tuner and S-Video and RCA Inputs and it also uses a High Quality Mpeg encoder Chip But it also has a Hardware Dolby Digital AC3 audio encoder which is the Best format for DVD"s, the Card also has a 12 Bit decoder Chip so the Quality should be Very Good and it has Hardware Noise Filters and 2D/3D Line Filters to clean up the Image and get rid of Interlace Artifacts, and it also has an audio Lock feature so you never get sync problems and it has a 16mb Frame Buffer so you don"t Drop Frames.... From the Specs it Looks Like the Theater 550 is the Better Card but It is a Fairly New card so i haven"t heard much about it but what I have heard was all good and the Hauppague WinTV PCR Card is an Older Card and Used By Many poeple and most say it is a Great Card so I don"t think you can go wrong with either one and Both are Under $100 US.... Both cards will Come with basic Capture Software and Might Come with a DVD authoring or Video editing software package, check with the card when you Buy it....Since these Cards Capture Directly to the Correct format for DVD all you need for Software Becides Capture Software is DVD authoring Software so you can add menu"s and Chapters and Burn the DVD and Hopefull the Card will come with some ..... When you get your capture card try useing it and if you run into problems Post Back here and someone will help you.... Cheers
