Old home movies on VCR tape

[Ripsnort]

How do I go about transferring VCR tapes of the kids, to a computer? What hardware do I need?  Does the cable output of the VCR use a special connector to the PC?

[GtoRA2]

Rip,
 Do you have a DV camcorder? If so it may support passthrough. What  you would do is hook the cam up to a 1394 port on the PC then hook the VCR to the cam and use the cam as a converter.

Works really well if the Camcorder supports it (many do)

[Ripsnort]

Originally posted by GtoRA2
Rip,
 Do you have a DV camcorder? If so it may support passthrough. What  you would do is hook the cam up to a 1394 port on the PC then hook the VCR to the cam and use the cam as a converter.

Works really well if the Camcorder supports it (many do)

Brilliant! Thanks, I will try that.

[Eagler]

if the camcorder doesn't have a pass through, you will need something like this

and alot of harddrive space

[x0847Marine]

Originally posted by Ripsnort
How do I go about transferring VCR tapes of the kids, to a computer? What hardware do I need?  Does the cable output of the VCR use a special connector to the PC?

 I've been using a $70 hauppauge tv tuner card I bought last year at Frys on sale... press play on the vrc, record on the computer and it's compressed in real time ready to be dvd/vcd'd. I usually make VCD's... they're cheaper to make and every old thing with a cd rom, and most every stand alone dvd player, can play them.

Charge your friends $100 to capture those old vcr wedding/birthday tapes...cough if you have the patience...cough.

I probably use the the built in FM radio and remote more than anything else.

http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_pvr350.html

[x0847Marine]

Originally posted by Eagler
if the camcorder doesn't have a pass through, you will need something like this

and alot of harddrive space

These are ok, but after recording to you have to then wait for the number crunching as the video compresses? raw video is huge, the hauppauge can reduce to 1GB/ per hr video.

A seperate card like mine compresses in real time, right after you're done recording its ready to be burned.

If its a 1 time thing however, this usb solution would be cheaper and do the trick without needing to insall a pci card.... even better is you can use the usb one with a notebook.

[FUNKED1]

Ask Weazel.

[Skuzzy]

X80, the DVC150 also has MPEG2 hardware encoder which compresses on the fly as well.

However, if you are going to be editing the movies and adding stuff (trailers, audio...), then you really want to work in the raw format due to the time it takes to uncompress, then recompress the data so it can be burned.

For a DV dump through a firewire port, figure about 3MB/s for storage of the video.

[Ripsnort]

Thanks guys, good info.

Was going to use my DV but I've not used it in over 2 years and can't find the dang charger!

[Gh0stFT]

Ripsnort why dont get a DVR? its the easyest way.
Press play on VHS and Record on the DVR, done.

I have the Tevion DWR-1000. I bought it from a friend for less
then 120€. The price for a new modell is about 200 €
I bought it mainly just for converting alot old VHS tapes to DVD.
Its very easy and the record Quality is ok, it depends on the quality of your VHS tape mainly!
here is a site with 7 different DVR tested. (URL only in german language though).

R
Gh0stFT

now i'm done with VHS converting i use the DVR for realtime recording
of onlinegames in digital quality. Press record and play...

[GtoRA2]

Don't edit anything in MPEG if you can avoid it.