Video Capture

[imported_Brackus3]

Hey There,

I was looking to back-up all my old 8mm video tapes and also some old vhs tapes we had recorded way back, and some we had made from the 8mm tapes.

The main reason is my grandparents 50th anniversary cd/dvd I was planning to make, but I think I might go professional and make some side money doing this part time afterwards.

I was wondering what exactly I would need. I plan to buy a tv tuner card (is this the best way to stream such video's into the computer from vhs and 8mm tapes?) and a 2-300gig external hdd, as well as a dvdrw. I was also thinking of some video editing software, something taht would just make it easy to place numerous video clips and sound along a timeline or something, and then maybe help burn and make the menu for dvds...

What I am really hoping, is some good tips on a good buy for a tv tuner card, the rest of my system is windows xp with 80gig hdd, audigy 2 value sound card, ATI 9600xt vid card... usb2.0 of course....

What tv tuner cards do a good job, for a lesser price, and are fairly easy to operate, also, I am open to tips for some (cheaper) software, i know software prices for professional stuff is killer!

If you think this is the best way to go, let me know, if you have other ideas for transferring this media to the computer, I am open to ideas

Thanks,

Dustin

 

[imported_Brackus3]

bump cause i was hoping for at least 1 or 2 replies...

 

[Tifosi248F1]

This is something I used to do the way you're talking about, but I built a new machine specifically for this purpose so I went with a more expensive approach. When I did this before I ran the video in through an ATI All-in-Wonder. S-video out from the camcorder and in to the card, which is pretty much what you would do with a tuner card.

The only experience I have with using an actual tuner card is using it like a TV, hooking up the cable to it and then recording what was on, so I can't help much with how to actually go about recording from a camera.

Now I use a digital camcorder as a digitizer. Run my videos through the camera and out through firewire to the PC. Extremely reliable and easy, but expensive. I know there are external transfer devices specifically for these purposes. Pinnacle and Hauppauge are 2 brands I can think of, and they make internal cards as well, and IIRC they come with software, but I'm not 100% positive.

As for software, I use Sony Vegas Movie Studio. It's the dumbed-down consumer version of their professional software. It is timeline based, is slightly cumbersome at first for editing but not hard to learn, and it comes with DVD software that lets you do menus and such. It will also encode your video to conform to DVD spec, mpeg-2 etc etc and you can easily adjust the bitrate to make everything fit on the disc.

I suggest checking out VideoHelp.com for more information. They have sections on hardware and software, reviews, how-tos, everything. Helped me a lot when I first started messing around with this stuff.

Good luck, and if you need any help or info feel free to ask me, I'll do my best.