VHS to DVD via PC

msaquib

Hi,

I have seen this on ebay:-



more details here http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/USB-Video-TV-VHS-DV-Capture-Device-DVD-Maker-Ulead_W0QQitemZ270366634016QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_CCTV?hash=item270366634016&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1690%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318

Has anyone actualy used this to transfer VHS to DVD? anywhere to by in the UK?

Thanks
MS

sillygoose

I have something similar. What they don't tell you is that it just captures raw video and stuffs it down the USB. Its a continual stream of a lot of data, so the processor has to try and stuff it on the hard drive as fast as possible. Uncompressed this is a really heavy workload and will quickly fill up your hard drive. Also it may take hours of computer time later to encode it to DVD format. Alternatively you can usually set the software to compress (encode) the video as it comes in but that requires tremendous processing power otherwise it will miss some bits and you get 'dropped frames' and jumpy video. If your computer isn't powerful enough it simply wont capture at DVD standard of video size at enough frame rate.

Moral of the story, unless you have a pokey computer, running nothing else at the time, and you keep your hard drive defragmented - forget it!
I have all that and was still disappointed with the results.

Your much better off with something that does it with hardware like a cheap DVD recorder or AV Recording hard drive.

HappyIdiotTalk

Or you could get a cheap TV card with an aerial input. Most come with software for recording to file. Once you've done that, then all you'd need to do is burn the file to DVD with Nero or whatever DVD burning software you have (InfraRecorder will do the job and is free).

HappyIdiotTalk

A few people seem to be using this too. Cant vouch for it though:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pinnacle-Systems-8230-10063-01-Dazzle-Recorder/dp/B001918NLC

weegie.geek

Any computer made in the last 2 or 3 years will be able to compress this video to mpeg2 in real time to be burned to DVD. You really don't want to do that though, you want to capture to huffyuv or another lossless compression codec, so you can edit the video before burning. Cropping out the black borders and adverts or whatever.

Again, any modern pc will have no trouble with this.