NTSC footage fropm VHS to DVD, UK-based user

[Fozzy]

Hi all
This question could sit quite happily in recording hardware section as well but thought I'd try it here.
I have searched through forums and google and whilst I can find answers to this question, a lot are old and I really could do with a 'new' answer that is up-to-date on hardware etc. I am in the UK by the way.

Basically - I want to get an NTSC VHS tape onto DVD. Both my VHS players are 'NTSC' compatible but I cannot get the player to record the signal properly, it's the 'usual' NTSC problem of wrong colours, or broken picture and DVD says 'paused for wrong TV System' error. The tapes play fine direct to the TV it's only when putting the DVDR in the chain it fouls up.

Now... what I understand is : (I think)
NTSC players from the UK may play the tapes (both mine do) but it probably isn't 'true' NTSC but a 'cheating' version - PAL60?

Most DVD recorders don't recognise the PAL60 signal?

My DVDRecorder (it's a cheap UMAX/Yamada thing) can output in NTSC but that doesn't mean it's reading the signal ok to record?

I also understand (but most post I found were 2 years old) that Pioneer DVD recorders tend to be able to do this.

Now... here's my question...
I have just 2 hours of footage that I need to do at the moment, it's a project for a 3rd party and I really would like to be able to complete it.


So.... what are my options? Do I need to get a new DVD recorder (and if so, are there any newer options than those 2007 posts I found, and what cost?)
OR is there another method? I'm very IT literate so if someone had a (relatively inexpensive) solution that would work on Windows (XP) platform then is there a good way of capturing (I use Pinnacle Studio for a start but not sure of if and how to connect up VHS). Any (cheap-ish) card or USB-type solutions?

Can anyone help me move this little project along?

THANKS

[r0lZ]

You can capture the video signal directly in your PC with a TV card or some video cards. I have a cheap old Philips TV card and I use ArcSoft ShowBiz DVD 2 to capture and convert the signal to an (almost uncompressed) AVI. (You need a lot of disc space.) Then I use CCE to recode it to MPEG2. However, I'm not sure this solution works well with your 'false NTSC' output, and it might be necessary to buy an expensive TV card if you want an RGB input.

[bratman91]

This follows on from a post I submitted a few days ago into the "Hardware" section. My Sony VCR will play and display an NTSC cassette on my TV screen. I understand the probability is that, as Fozzy says in his post, the VCR output is in a pseudo-NTSC format (Pal60, maybe) but this doesn't seem to matter as my TV claims to be able to display PAL and NTSC input. Now the options in the TV menu allow the input to the Scart lead to the Sony DVD recorder to be selected - this Scart lead is AV3, so AV1,AV2, and so on can be selected as the input to it. One of the selections is "Monitor" which, according to the manual, is whatever is displayed on the TV screen. However, even though a good picture can be obtained from an NTSC cassette, the DVD recorder cannot record it. This may well be a dumb question but shouldn't the DVD recorder be able to record what is on the screen whatever the form or format of the original data?