What's the easiest way to do this ?

I've seen a TV card that has a video capability on your disk but it's about £200 !

I want to be able to record onto VCD so that I can play it back on my portable DVD (Sony FX1). I've already got the AVI ->VCD bit working.

Are there any sites that let you download telly programs in AVI (or any other) format ?

Try morpheous at musicity. Ive been downloading the new star trek enterprise series.

Claw(dash)

Most TV cards will let you record straight to disk in a puve avi format. The more expensive cards have extra h/w to do MPEG encode/decode on the fly (to reduce the filesize) and the S/W to make life easy.

Any of the basic hauppage cards will certainly record straight to disk - just make sure you have plenty of free space ;)

Deano

Thanks - I'll try Morpheous and will look further into the TV cards.

I've only got about 10Gb free so a 100Gb+ disk is on my shopping list !

try the ads USB device has hardware mpeg chip - see www.adstech.com

will capture at 5mb/sec - very nice quality.

then use ulead dvd plugin www.ulead.com to write your mpegs to cd-r in mini-dvd format - immeasurably superior to vcd.

I get 20 mins of dvd on a 700 MB cd-r


Paul W

I recently bought (and then sold) A Pinnacle PCTV Rave card. They are very cheap, you can get one from Currys for £34.99. They act as a TV tuner, and you can record to an AVI file. Quite a good piece of kit for the price.
http://www.pinnaclesys.de/uk/images/1_114.jpg


[Edited by DJ Dunk - 1/28/2002 9:47:11 AM]

pwebb - sounds like a good setup, but unfortunately my portable DVD won't play Mini-DVD format - or atleast it's not listed on the things it will play (DVD, Video CD & CD).

I want some ability to record while I'm not there (or awake) so I guess it's either a hauppague PVR card or use my existing video with the adstech device though they're both a few hundred quid !

send me a mail at pinkbadge@lineone.net and I can mail you a dvd format cd-r to try out on your portable - you can then decide whether the ulead software is suitable for you.

cheers,

Paul W