Hi Ive been searching these forums for a way to transfer VHS footage to a computer hard drive. I have seen the ways of linking up a video player and a dvd player together and transfering the footage this way then taking the footage from the dvd onto the hard drive. But as i dont own a recordable Dvd player i am unable to use this method. I was just wondering if any1 knew of a way of linking a video player up to a computer and transfering the footage straight from the video player to the computers hard drive so then it can be authored and burnt onto dvd. Cheers for the help.
Ye' asketh, and ye' shall receivith'. As as far as I know, it's the best PVR utility available. Take a read and see if this is for you. Standard Video transfer, S-Video and RJ-59 compatible. http://www.hauppauge.com/
Great. Thats seems to be exactly what im looking for. However i've only got the one aerial running into my room and this ive got linked into the tv. Does any1 know of a way to split the signal from this aerial and run 1 half of the signal to my tv and the other to my computer. Would this degrade the picture quality? Cheers
Go to radio shack or Home Depot or Lowes. Get the following 1 Double connection RJ59 coaxial cable splitter 2 3 foot [or your desired length] sections of readily prepared RJ59 coaxial cable Approx cost $15-20 bucks and no loss or degradation of cable picture quality on either end. Go back to your dorm, or room or house. Connect your cable from the wall to the singl side of the connector. Fasten the 2 3 foot sections to the other side of the connector. Then fasten one to the tele, and the other to the PVR card. Voila, you in business.
Thanks alot for all your help. Just got 1 more question if you wouldnt mind answering it. Im planning to use the WinTv-pvr to record the upcoming football world cup. a standard dvd will only hold 120mins of footage and a footy match is 90mins long. if i wanted to fit more than 1 match on dvd i would have to compress it wouldnt I? does the pvr program do this for you? if it doesnt have you got any idea of a good program that i can use to compress this footage without degrading picture quality and will play on a dvd player. Once again cheers for all your help.
This wont answer your question directly, but I wanted to transfer my 8mm and vhs home movies to DVD. So instead of buying a $1000.00 plus computer I opted for the Sony DVDirect for $250.00, almost less than buying the video card needed for my computer. It is a stand alone unit and it will record 1 hour at high quality, 2 hours at standard quality, and 6 hours at extended play. It records the movie at a 1:1 ratio, so if the movie is 50 minutes in length it takes 50 minutes to copy. You just plug in your camera or vcr and hit record. It also will work with a computer but I use mine strictly as a stand alone unit. Thats how I solved my home movie transfer problem. But as I find out it seems the 8mm and vhs tapes may actually outlast the DVD media. I have vhs tapes going back to 1984 and they still play.
As far as the compression. Your PVR should be able to do this. After the match has completed and you've stopped the recording. You should have an option to burn to DVD. By default the software should have a compression tool which will compress the video to one DVD. This is a paragraph out of the sites feature list: http://www.snapstream.com/products/beyondtv/features.asp Feel the Burn MPEG-2 recordings made with Beyond TV are ready to burn onto DVDs. Easily record in DVD-quality MPEG-2 format and create your own personal video library with DVD-ready recordings and 3rd party software.
There are many options to get old VHS tapes onto your computer, all of them require some sort of hardware, so that you can connect your RCA (Audio/video) or S video cables and then capture the VHS onto the computer. The way i got around is by hooking my VHS player to my Camcorder, and hooking my camcorder to my computer, and then start my software to capture mode and I play my VHS player, it captures just fine. Of course the Camcorder needs to be on and in VTR mode. By the way you better have a lot of hard drive space, for VHS capture.
Got round this problem by purchasing a WinTV-PVR350 and received it the other day. Got it all installed and workin fine. Pritty impressed with it actually works well apart from the odd lip synch but i think thats just down to my computer not being up to the latest spec, its only 1.2 Ghz processor although i have just bought a 250 gb hard drive to store the video files on. Still overcome this problem by closing all programs at system startup that i dont need running. However i wasnt that impressed with the Ulead DVD factory 3 burning software that was supplied and am looking for another package to get. Does any1 know of a good DVD burning software to buy that you can fully customize the menus on, including moving the movie boxes around aswell as creating chapters within those movies. Cheers
I use Sony Vegas 4. But there are many of them out there. VirtualDub Pro, I use Sony DVD Architect. Have you looked at Nero, which seems to have a pretty good software for a complete production of a DVD. The problem with most of these hardware purchases like the one you made, are that they include a software to justify the high prices they are tagged at. One of the best hardware (very expensive) is a product made by Canopus compnay. Good luck and have fun.
