Dear Friends, Here’s the long and the short of it. I want to be able to transfer some older family VHS & 8mm tapes to DVD. I also want to be able to copy some DVD movies to DVD. I gather from questions that I’ve asked that the best way to do that is to copy these mediums to my Hard Drive and then transfer them to a DVD disk. What I believe I need (and you can help me with this) is a DVD +- Burner, something that will enable me to connect my VCR to my computer, and software that will enable me to edit & enhance my VHS tapes and in some cases compress my DVD’s so they will fit on a regular DVD disk without loosing quality (and if you have suggestions on which disks work best, that too). I’m a poor working stiff so I want the highest quality for the lowest price. If you guys (and girls) have some ideas, some names, and or some prices (and maybe where to purchase) I’d really appreciate them. How to’s will help as well. Whatever you can give me I’ll take. If it helps, looking at my systems properties it says that I have a AMD Anthlon™ XP 1800+ (processor), 256 megs of RAM, I use Windows 98SE, and have about 33 gigs (of 60 gig) available on my Hard Drive, a 3D fx Voodoo Banshee Display Driver, and I don’t know what else. Anyone who has equipment similar to mine and has had success at doing the things I want to do please advise me as to what you used. Anything you can tell me will be appreciated. Thanks in advance you guys (and gals) have been most helpful in the past. Thanks & God Bless Uncle Bob
Well start reading here: http://www.dvdrhelp.com/guides.php?howtoselect=9#9 As far as burners Pioneer, NEC (the cheapest, but a good unit) or Plextor would be good choices.
Bob, You haven't said what connectors you have. I'll assume that if your PC in less than 2 years old you have 2.0 USB ports - in which case you're in good shape - Try USB instant DVD - it has your soft and hardware and does a pretty good job - http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/72361 Pete
This forum will help you with the VHS and 8mm part of your querie: http://forums.afterdawn.com/forum_view.cfm/79
I've had audio-sync problems with Instant DVD 2.0. Apparently so have many others. Check this forum out. http://pub9.ezboard.com/fpyro1394frm8?page=4 ADS Tech would not respond to my email, and they provide no support on their web page to resolve this problem. In a two-hour capture test, the sync was evaluated at ten-minute intervals. Ten minutes into the video, the audio was 9 frames out of sync. Surprisingly (to me) the audio gradually grew closer to being in sync over time, e.g. 9 frames, 8, 7, etc., until at the two full hours the audio was only two frames out. I’ve also tried AverMedia’s DVD EzMaker PCI card for burning to DVD in real time. No audio sync problems but the video quality settings in the packaged NeoDVD software are inflexible. That is, there is no selection of bit rate. You can choose between best (90 min capture max), better (180 min capture), and fair capture settings. The best setting results in good quality video quality, but my home videos are on two-hour tapes, and I don’t want to split them up. The three-hour setting results in video quality that is unacceptable to me. I’m thinking of trying Plextor ConvertX and WinDVR for an alternative solution. I’d like to know what others think of these products. _X_X_X_X_X_[small]TAC[/small]
