Vdeo Tape to CD or DVD - what hardware/software do I need?

[aks93]

Hi

Ive got a wedding video tape Id like to put on a CD or DVD. What hardware or software do I need for both cases? Is this relatively easy to do?

Thanks

 

[aka1nas]

I'd just get a decent Tv-tuner card that allows vid capture. Or get one of the Dazzle Analog kits. Think a decent one for either will be about $80. Keep in mind that if your source is a VHS tape, its not gonna look too great on a computer monitor. The TV has a much lower resolution. To see if its gonna look ok, run the playback window at maybe a quarter of the screen.

 

[VBboy]

The easiest and (and not necessarily the most expensive) way is to contact a company that provides these services - you send them a tape, then send you back that tape and a CD/DVD. Just search the web - I don't know such a company.

If you you don't already have the required hardware, it will be much more expensive to buy it than to do what I suggested above. Anyway, you need a CDRW (speed doesn't matter, 24x is $90 on NewEgg.com) or a DVD+RW or a DVD-RW (there are several formats for DVD writing, devices cost around $600). You also need a videocard that can take a Video-In and Audio-In signal, or a cheap TV tuner that can do that. You connect the VCR's Video and Audio outs to the card's Video and Audio ins, set VCR to play, and capture the incoming video using some software. You will get a file which you burn on a CD or a DVDR[W].

 

[VBboy]

You will need a pretty fast PC so you can do real-time MPEG compression on the incoming audio+video. I could do that on a relatively-small resolution, 320x240 on my old CeleryA 450. You will probably want at least 400x300, so you may need 600 MHz or above.

Or you can capture to raw AVI format, which will eat up your HD space like a hungry Taliban. Something along the lines of 15 MB/s or more. So you need a very fast HD that can do high sustained transfer rates. 27 GB for 30 mins of such uncompressed audio+video.