VHS to DVD Burn: What Do I Need?

[Stoney]

I want to transfer my VHS hometapes as well as Mini-DV to DVD. My hardware is as follows:

M-Audio Revolution 5.1 sound card
X800 GTO 256 meg video card
2 gigs of PC 3200 RAM
Athlon 64 3200+ cpu
Lite-On DVD Rom +/- R-RW 16x drives/burners
USB and firewire connections

Software: Nero 7 Ultra Edition/ Windows XP Pro with SP2

What do I still need to make this work? Thanks.

[pentachris]

For Mini-DV to DVD, here's what I do:

Connect the camcorder to my PC via firewire, capture the video (for this, I prefer the free app WinDV available here (http://windv.mourek.cz/)), edit the video and convert the AVI's that WinDV captures to MPG's using an NLE (I use Sony Vegas Movie Studio), then use a DVD creation utility to make the DVD menus and render the DVD files (I use Sony DVD Architect, comes with Vegas), then burn the resulting files to DVD using Nero.

For everything that I use the Sony products for, I believe there are apps in the Nero suite that will work.

For VHS to DVD, I use my camcorder as a analog to digital pass-through device (analog from VHS to the camcorder, firewire from the camcorder to PC) and use the same process as above. Perhaps your camcorder has this feature. If not, you'll need another way to get the video to your computer, like a capture card. Hauppage & Canopus make good ones, as does Pinnacle (ErnieK recommended a product he likes in this thread (http://pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?t=50188).)

[jmkeuning]

You just need a capture card and a DVD burning drive and program. I use a Hauppauge WINTV-PVR-150 and have had NO problems. You plug the VCR into the card, you see the video on screen, hit RECORD. Then you can either edit or burn your MPEGs.

I recommend the forums over at videohelp.com. There is a capture forum.

[Whyzman]

The capture cards are great...they add another dimension to your computer in that you can also watch TV whilst on-line. Right now I'm answering this post and watching the Timberwolves on my computer screen on a scaleable window...

I'm using and all-in-wonder ATI, but as jmk points out, the Hauppauge capture cards work well also...

[Rick]

Another option
A capture device like the Dazzle
It plugs into a USB port.
You connect any video/audio device to it and then capture it using the supplied software

[Stoney]

Okay, guys,thanks for the tips/advice.