VHS/cassette to digital

[Isocene]

I want to backup some of my old VHS and cassette tapes to my computer.

Is there anything that can do this for a reasonable price? Is it difficult?

 

[Linflas]

I use my Hauppauge WinTV PVR 350 for that. It is really simple but time consuming if you have 6 hour VCR tapes.

 

[Jawo]

I did about 25 tapes about 6 months ago. I used a Hauppague PVR-250 ad the included software. You aren't going to get crystal quality for its comming from an analog format, but it looks like watching standard TV. Hook the Coax out cable from the VCR to the Coax in on the PVR card and ensure that the PVR card is on right channel (usually 3).

Good luck and PM me if you have further questions.

 

[bigfil]

yeh some sort of video capture card will do it
i have an ati all in wonder that works that kind of magic
you just reminded me to do that thanks!

 

[Jeff7]

You might want a VCR with L/R RCA outputs if you want stereo sound. As I understand it, VCR's output mono sound through their coaxial port.
The PVR-350 supports an add-in bracket that gives you more RCA connectors.

A good place to learn about Hauppauge products: SHSPVR.com. Check out their forums too.

 

[RayH]

If you have a dv camcorder, alot can encode to digital from an external analog source and then send the digital feed to your pc via firewire.

 

[nole1fan]

Originally posted by: RayH
If you have a dv camcorder, alot can encode to digital from an external analog source and then send the digital feed to your pc via firewire.

It takes too long. I would use any TV Capture card, and it is breeze without much of CPU cylce.

 

[LASTGUY2GETPS2]

ATI TV Tuner, WinDVR, MPEGVCR. and TMPGENC

go to www.vcdhelp.com

Just keep in mind that it will take a while to convert some of these. Make sure you have a lot of HD Space (I recently bought a 400 GB before I began)

 

[Night201]

Originally posted by: RayH
If you have a dv camcorder, alot can encode to digital from an external analog source and then send the digital feed to your pc via firewire.

This is what I do as well:

VHS/Hi-8 -> Panasonic DVC80 -> firewire to computer (Premiere)

 

[eplebnista]

For VHS: I used a Powercolor Theater 550 Pro(pci-express version)with the composite inputs, and the included Cyberlink PowerDirector Express(set to best picture with high quality encoding). 1 hour took about 1.5gb of space.
For audio cassettes: I used Musicmatch Jukebox 10 and the line-in on the motherboard's integrated sound system.

 

[CFster]

Originally posted by: nole1fan

Originally posted by: RayH
If you have a dv camcorder, alot can encode to digital from an external analog source and then send the digital feed to your pc via firewire.

It takes too long. I would use any TV Capture card, and it is breeze without much of CPU cylce.

How does it take longer.

And, you still have to encode with the card.

 

[LASTGUY2GETPS2]

Originally posted by: CFster

Originally posted by: nole1fan

Originally posted by: RayH
If you have a dv camcorder, alot can encode to digital from an external analog source and then send the digital feed to your pc via firewire.

It takes too long. I would use any TV Capture card, and it is breeze without much of CPU cylce.

How does it take longer.

And, you still have to encode with the card.

Maybe the feed isn't in MPEG-2 and needs to be re-encoded?

/Just a thought
//Never used this method

 

[CFster]

As far as I know, the only cards that can hardware encode to MPEG2 on the fly are very expensive. A lot of them say they can, but it's actually done in software.

Porting through a camcorder, the video is sent to the PC via Firewire in RAW AVI format. You then have to encode that to MPEG2 in software. It's the same difference.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: CFster
As far as I know, the only cards that can hardware encode to MPEG2 on the fly are very expensive. A lot of them say they can, but it's actually done in software.

Porting through a camcorder, the video is sent to the PC via Firewire in RAW AVI format. You then have to encode that to MPEG2 in software. It's the same difference.

Not really. Hauppauge's PVR-PCI (older model), PVR-250, 350, and 500 all do hardware MPEG-2 encoding. The later models show moderate (25% on an XP2400) CPU utilization when showing TV, because they decode MPEG-2 in software, which they do all the time - the card is always encoding MPEG-2, which is then fed to a software decoder for display on the monitor.
However, the PVR-PCI didn't do this - it only fed an MPEG2 stream to the software decoder when it was recording something. Otherwise, it showed a direct, live TV feed, courtesy of its bt878 chip. When it was encoding MPEG2, the CPU utilization only changed by maybe 2-3%. It was definitely doing the encoding on the card's hardware.

So if a card says it's encoding in hardware, well, it has to. Otherwise it's false advertising.

 

[HomerSapien]

I just did this. From actual chs tapes, the hauppage method works great. When i use my camcorder tape to vhs adapter, the video records fine, but the sound is gone. Any suggestions?

Oh, and I used Sage TV to record. WinTV 2000 had a difficult time choosing the correct source since i have 2 pvr-150's.

 

[funboy6942]

Originally posted by: LASTGUY2GETPS2
ATI TV Tuner, WinDVR, MPEGVCR. and TMPGENC

go to www.vcdhelp.com

Just keep in mind that it will take a while to convert some of these. Make sure you have a lot of HD Space (I recently bought a 400 GB before I began)

 

[John P]

For what it would cost you to have it done you could buy a mini-dv digital camcorder with analog inputs and do it yourself.

I prefer to transfer my VHS tapes to Mini-DV tapes first. That way I can use the Mini-DV tapes as storage instead of storing it on a computer hard drive. Then I can create digital copies any time I want by playing the Mini-DV tape to the computer via firewire.

You can also skip the Mini-DV tape using the passthrough on the camcorder.

You end up with the same thing either way - a big ole AVI file on your computer. Then just use Nero or Pinnacle Studio or whatever software to encode (to MPEG-2), author, and write to DVD.