Hi there,

are there any relatively easy ways to get VHS to DVD at home?

One suggestion is to buy a TV card with PVR and record the analogue output from the VCR.

Can anybody who has achieved this outcome let me know what is possible? And what products they used to do it?

Thank you in anticipation.

Rannoch

 

I found the best way was to get a DVD Recorder and connect your VCR to that (Scart to Scart), no PC involved. Then you can copy the DVD files to your PC and edit as normal. DVD Recorders are pretty cheap now.

I have a TV card which is fine for viewing on screen, but when it comes to recording, it doesn't really cut it.

 

I was about to ask a similar question, I have a 30 minute programme on a VHS tape that I want to get onto MPEG on my computer.

What's the best way to approach this?

TIA

 

You need a video input on your PC and some recording software. Check your video card and see if it has an input connector on it (or check the documentation for it). If not you'll have to get a TV card.
There's plenty of software to choose from, some of it's even free. For detailed tutorials check out this site :

http://www.videohelp.com/capture

[edit] Tom's hardware have done a dedicated tutorial - click here to read it

 

Cheers MJW

I'm sure there's a tv card in the PC in question, it's just never been used.

 

Note that you'll likely lose some quality by going through a pc tv tuner card. If that's not important to you then fair enough. If it is, then you'd be better off getting a dedicated video capture card.

Also, if the tc card has not got a hardware mpeg encoder, then you are going to need a pretty quick pc and hard disc to keep up with the data rate...

I myself use a Matrox RT.X100 Extreme Pro. Probably a bit out of your budget though, especially if you are not going to be doing a lot of it. I expect the cheaper options will do the job for you however...

 

I've been doing this for people for beer money for 2-3 years (fortunately I rarely drink!)
I use a Dazzle Hollywood Bridge, which was pretty pricey 2 years ago, but does the job well. Obviously you're limited to VHS quality however you do it, but the Dazzle keeps iot acceptable. Haven't tried it with a DVD recorder yet - it would be much easier and quicker, but less flexible

 

Got myself a Hauppage WinTV USB PVR!

Has an onboard MPEG converter - has S, Composite and TV inputs. Does a great job as a TV and a very good job as a recorder. £80 all in so I am pleased.

No doubt there is better, cheaper - but got the job done I needed doing today

Rannoch

 

I've just put a TV card in my PC.

Only taped one programe so far, but was a bit ammazed at the size.
388 MB for 35 mins !!

And the quality is mediocre at best.

TV live is fine, but I need to play around with the capture rate

 

you can get a scart lead with a red yellow white connection on it

on one end if you get what i mean ...from any radio shack shop ..

i bought one for £7 picture quality was 100%

 

Velo,

if it is 355mb then you have recorded it at fairly low quality. Reasonable DVD quality is around 2GB per hour. HD DVD is 5.4GB per hour.

355mb is a mere trifle

Rannoch