Video - Dvd

ELLA

I would love some advice please, I have a load of JVC 60min Tapes that I really want to convert to dvd's. I dont want to edit them but just simply and cheaply convert them.

I have asked the chap who recorded my wedding what his price would be, He would charge £15 per tape:eek: which is too much for me at the moment, even if I did one a month it would take me a while.

Is there some cheap but good gadget on a website that someone could point me in the direction of.

Many thanks
Ella

bat999

Hi
This question has been asked before on the forum.
I think that you need to find a friend who has a dvd recorder.
Then you play your tapes on your vhs machine while it is connected to the recorder through a cable.
Maybe someone will add some more information for you here later.

weegie.geek

When you say 60 minute tapes, are these vhs or DV tapes?

If it's VHS tapes, one of these will do the trick

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Hauppauge-WinTV-USB-box-with-SVHS-in-audio-in-out_W0QQitemZ320209544440QQihZ011QQcategoryZ3761QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Hauppauge-PCI-TV-Card_W0QQitemZ330204514907QQihZ014QQcategoryZ3761QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/DIGITAL-T-V-CARD_W0QQitemZ180208403692QQihZ008QQcategoryZ3761QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/AVer-TV-Super-007-Analogue-Digital-TV-Tuner_W0QQitemZ370015203990QQihZ024QQcategoryZ3761QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Hauppauge-WINTV-PVR-250-and-Hauppauge-Remote_W0QQitemZ320209083659QQihZ011QQcategoryZ3761QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/HAUPPAUGE-WINTV-HVR-1110-PCI-TV-CARD-USED_W0QQitemZ300190969803QQihZ020QQcategoryZ3761QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/TV-Tuner-Card_W0QQitemZ270204705660QQihZ017QQcategoryZ3761QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

and they're all pretty cheap. Ending in the next 24 hours, and you should be able to get them for around a tenner including postage.

Hauppauge are one of the biggest names in this kind of thing, but aver and compro are ok too. The bottom one will do the trick too, but I'd expect the others to give better results.

You'll also need cables to connect your vhs player to the card, so you're looking at another £5 or so for them.

If it's DV tapes, depending on your camera and pc, you'll probably just need a firewire/1394 cable and/or a firewire/1394 card. You might already have a cable but no card, or you might have a card (or firewire built into your motherboard) but no cable.

You can get a firewire card and a firewire cable for about £10 before delivery at ebuyer and the like.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Pinnacle-systems-Excalibur-5-1-Firewire-PCI-Card_W0QQitemZ220194328222QQihZ012QQcategoryZ86700QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

has both firewire and composite/svideo capturing, but it's got a few days to go yet, and I think it'll fetch a little more than the ones listed above.

Either way, depending on the spec of your pc, you can get a tv/capture card that'll do the trick for £15 or less.

Donnie

ELLA wrote: »

I would love some advice please, I have a load of JVC 60min Tapes that I really want to convert to dvd's. I dont want to edit them but just simply and cheaply convert them.

I have asked the chap who recorded my wedding what his price would be, He would charge £15 per tape:eek: which is too much for me at the moment, even if I did one a month it would take me a while.

Is there some cheap but good gadget on a website that someone could point me in the direction of.

Many thanks
Ella

DVD recorders are available from sixty pounds. Philips

ELLA

weegie.geek wrote: »

When you say 60 minute tapes, are these vhs or DV tapes?

If it's VHS tapes, one of these will do the trick

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Hauppauge-WinTV-USB-box-with-SVHS-in-audio-in-out_W0QQitemZ320209544440QQihZ011QQcategoryZ3761QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Hauppauge-PCI-TV-Card_W0QQitemZ330204514907QQihZ014QQcategoryZ3761QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/DIGITAL-T-V-CARD_W0QQitemZ180208403692QQihZ008QQcategoryZ3761QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/AVer-TV-Super-007-Analogue-Digital-TV-Tuner_W0QQitemZ370015203990QQihZ024QQcategoryZ3761QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Hauppauge-WINTV-PVR-250-and-Hauppauge-Remote_W0QQitemZ320209083659QQihZ011QQcategoryZ3761QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/HAUPPAUGE-WINTV-HVR-1110-PCI-TV-CARD-USED_W0QQitemZ300190969803QQihZ020QQcategoryZ3761QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/TV-Tuner-Card_W0QQitemZ270204705660QQihZ017QQcategoryZ3761QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

and they're all pretty cheap. Ending in the next 24 hours, and you should be able to get them for around a tenner including postage.

Hauppauge are one of the biggest names in this kind of thing, but aver and compro are ok too. The bottom one will do the trick too, but I'd expect the others to give better results.

You'll also need cables to connect your vhs player to the card, so you're looking at another £5 or so for them.

If it's DV tapes, depending on your camera and pc, you'll probably just need a firewire/1394 cable and/or a firewire/1394 card. You might already have a cable but no card, or you might have a card (or firewire built into your motherboard) but no cable.

You can get a firewire card and a firewire cable for about £10 before delivery at ebuyer and the like.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Pinnacle-systems-Excalibur-5-1-Firewire-PCI-Card_W0QQitemZ220194328222QQihZ012QQcategoryZ86700QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

has both firewire and composite/svideo capturing, but it's got a few days to go yet, and I think it'll fetch a little more than the ones listed above.

Either way, depending on the spec of your pc, you can get a tv/capture card that'll do the trick for £15 or less.

Mine are DV tapes, my husband said that we have firewire built into our laptop and we just need to get some sort of cable??

BillScarab

If they're DV tapes you should just need a firewaire cable (AKA ie1394). Plug your camcorder in to your PC with the cable and you should be good to go. You'll need osme capturing software but if you're not bothered about editting it then Windows Moviemaker should be fine. It's also Ok for basic editting.

One thing to consider is space, video takes up huge mounts of disc space. How much do you have free? If it's a laptop this could be an issue unless you have an external hard drive.

Donnie

Not to mention, a very tiresome job. Each tape could take hours, first the capture and then the conversion and burning.
Quality could also suffer if your laptop is not up to the job.

You could begin with the free 15 day trial of Nero 8 which can do the capture conversion and DVD burning.

donnajunkie

if you do do it with a firewire cable you also need to know that you wont get the date and time that you have on the recording. so if you want the date and time to stay then you need to get a dvd recorder i think. you would then connect the cable you must have got with the camcorder that has the red, white and yellow plugs to your dvd recorder. it is then a simple case of playing tape and starting a dvd recording at the same time. if you do go down the route of useing the firewire cable with your laptop then dont put it into avi format coz that will use up alot of hard drive. when i did it it took up around 18gb for one 90 minute tape. so i think i did the next one in windows media which i think took up alot less room. it did take ages and personally i am just going to use a dvd recorder in future as soon as i get one coz the current one is kerput.

buglawton

I agree with the DVD recorder idea - they seem to be much simpler to use than a DVD burner. I plugged the SCART from an old VHS player into the SCART of the DVD recorder and it does a great job of transferring the recording. You can even do some rudimentary editing during recording by pressing PAUSE on the DVD recorder at the start of a section to remove, then PLAY when the section to remove comes to an end. The break is barely noticeable on DVD playback.

You can always justify buying a DVD recorder as it makes a good player too, can get an HD upscaling one from Richer Sounds for £100 now, and it takes up no more space than a player. Richer even has a Panasonic Freeview one for around £150 (so doubles up as a Freeview tuner).

ELLA

Hello Everyone,

Thank you for your comments. I will give you the scenario at the moment and see if you have any suggestions!

I have a Samsung VP-D20 Mini DV Camcorder.

I have a laptop with 160GB HD, 2GHz RAM, Dual Core 2.0GHZ Processor

I also have the firewire card built into my laptop, all I needed was a cable that I managed to get in ASDA today.

The only problem is - once I hook up the cam to the laptop and I try using software such as:

Nero 8
DVD Santa
Windows Movie Maker

I find that every one of these programs does not recognise that there is a camcorder attached. When I plug the cable in, Windows makes the noise it normally does when you attach and detach hardware?

On all of the tips so far, I notice that people say I should have the camcorder set to VCR mode, but I dont seem to have this option on the cam. All I have is player, off and camera.

Could this be a reason why I cant get a signal found? I have checked device manager and the drivers seem up to date and its says its working properly. I have also tried playing with the menus on the cam to see if there are any other options - but no luck.

Does anybody have any ideas or is my cam a bit historic as it does not have a VCR option? Are there any other drivers I could try or software to install?

Thank you again for your help so far and I hope someone can assist with this problem.

Thanks

Ella

ELLA

Hope you dont mind me bumping this up.