analogue to digtal

[john87]

I need to burn my VHS video tapes on to DVD.

I have Pc with the follwing data; Processor AMD AThlon xp2600+1.92 GHZ. 512 Ram . 118Gb HD. Window XP home.

Can I put aTV card in my pc and connect my VHS to the pc and down load onto the HD and then burn on toDVD? :confused:

I have DVD burner etc.
Many thanks for any help.
John87

[ErnieK]

john WELCOME to the forums.

You would have to ensure that the card you got had the connectors to allow this.

The following link will give you a good idea of what you need and what to do once you have your card.
http://personal-computer-tutor.com/abc3/v21/vic21.htm

You will also need to have software to allow you to convert the AVI files. You can get a complete kit (hardware and software) from Pinnacle Sytems
http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/us/Home/ The card supplied by them is not a TV card as such but allows you to connect your TV/VCR to the computer where you can view and transfer the contents to your computer.

It is possible to use Windows Movie Maker (if you have XP) but this is only of any real use to practice with as the output is restrictive.

[pangea33]

VideoHelp.com is an absolute must-read for this subject. They cover everything you could want to know, and there are over 80,000 unique visitors a day to the site and forums. I know I post it all the time, but people keep asking, so I keep pasting. I have no affiliation with this site.

How to capture Video, TV,Cam using a TV-Card/Videocard with Video-in (http://www.videohelp.com/capture#9;50)

How to capture using a ATI All-In-Wonder or other ATIs Capture Cards (http://www.videohelp.com/capture#9;45)

[NeWbiE :-)]

Dazzle (http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/us/Products/Consumer+Products/Home+Video/Dazzle/Digital+Video+Creator+85.htm)

There may be a cheaper/easier way to do it but this is very popular plus seems simple. Also Sony makes a product i think, "DirectDVD" which is pretty much an external DVD burner with the same a/v jacks or s-video in port, with some options and a little lcd screen. In this case u would just plug in your vcr/video camera, put in a disc, And burn. No PC required. But then u also loose any chance of editing your video. Good luck.

[jmkeuning]

I just built a PC because I wanted to upgrade from the laptop with the specific purpose of recording TV. I found it amazing that there are almost no good places to get advice on this subject. There are certainly forums dedicated to the practice, but even those will not help you solve a specific problem. They will certainly not help you pick the best tuner card for your budget. That, of course, is my opinion based on my research. With all due respect to pangea33, I had a hard time getting first-time-buyer advice regarding hardware and software.
I ended up buying two tuner cards and trying them out in my computer. The first I got because my mobo did not have on-board video so I got a tuner card with DVI-out. The second I got, sort of by mistake, but decided to try it out when I decided that the video-out function of the first was no up to par. I have since got a new video card, taken out the tuner/video-card combo, and use the second tuner card.
All that to say: I have tried two cards:
The first was a PNY Personal Cinema GeForce FX 5700 128MB DDR AGP 4X/8X Video Card. This one worked pretty good but you have to have a AGP slot. I liked the fact that it integrated with some sort of VCR-plus software so you could schedule TV recordings very easily. However, I was not a big fan of the viewing interface. However, if you had this card, and plugged in your VCR, you will see your VCR playing on your screen and you just hit the record button and it will record the content to your HDD. What I REALLY DID NOT LIKE ABOUT THIS CARD, and I did not see this is any of the reviews out there, was that in order to get the audio you have to plug this short 1/8" stereo patch cable from the video card out into your input on your soundcard. I found this feature to be very annoying; I did not like the idea of going from digital to analog back to digital in the encoding process. As I said, this aspect of these cards is not explicitly stated in the descriptions, and I decided to stay away from it.
So I plugged in my Hauppauge WINTV-PVR-150 PCI Interface Tuner Card (requires AGP slot), which I was going to return. This card did not have this audio dongle so my concerns were alieviated. Overall, I am satisfied with it. It will do the same thing the other will do. Start the software and see what is coming in on the cable, hit record and record it.
Both of these are middle-of-the-price-range choices and I got what I wanted. Of course, there are stand alone units that handle the whole operation, but I am still a skeptic about this technology and I like to see that the audio and video are synched properly by looking at the file on the PC... plus, these PC cards are cheap!

[pangea33]

I don't have any experience with tv-tuner cards, so I don't know how hard it is to find useful info. I was talking about a simple a/v capture, for transferring VHS to digital format. Before spending lots of money on software, it's important to note that you can find hundreds of free tools from that site too.

We've all got different levels of experience, and tolerances for frustration, so I understand your position. Maybe those links aren't for everyone. Good luck.