VHS to PC

[bob_goldwater]

I was just wondering if anyone knew a way to capture a VHS on a pc maybe with a s-video cable or something so that it can be burned to a DVD. I know they have players that will do this but I was looking for a cheaper way to do it, any suggestions on how to do this, what software, and what cables to use would be appreciated

[atifsh]

u need a capturing card, most tv tuners can capture aswell, see if u have one, otherwise u need a capturing card.

[hello people]

You should check out guides on the net too. I wanna do this too. I have an awesome doco I got off TV years ago onto VHS. It's an awesome doco about the KKK and racism

[MikeyBK]

@ Bob,

This thread will probably have some info that might be of benefit for you.

http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=67419&highlight=wintv+pvr-150

[bob_goldwater]

what exactly is a capturing card and how would i know if i had one in a tv tuner or anything else. i figured it would be easer than that like hook up an s-video cable from vcr to my video card and get capturing software, but i guess everything isn't as easy as i think it should be

[MikeyBK]

what exactly is a capturing card and how would i know if i had one in a tv tuner or anything else. i figured it would be easer than that like hook up an s-video cable from vcr to my video card and get capturing software, but i guess everything isn't as easy as i think it should be

Newegg has some good prices on them>

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?N=2100380047&Submit=ENE&Subcategory=47&Description=capture+cards&Ntk=all

[Mike89]

Your video card should work just fine as most of them now days can capture video. It should have come with the cables to hook it up from vid card to VHS. That's the way I do it (I've actually done it with both my video card and with my TV Tuner which does capturing as well).

A stand alone capture card is not needed unless you have a really ancient video card that can't do it.

As for software, there are a lot of them. If you have the Nero Suite, you already have it (Nero Vision)

[jm1647]

Not VHS to PC but almost a year ago I bought a LiteOn LVW-5005 standalone DVD recorder. There is a macrovision hack around for it so protected tapes and DVDs are no problem. The DVD part comes in handy for scratched DVDs the puter drives can't rip because if it plays it gets copied. The best $145 US I ever spent.

[MikeyBK]

Your video card should work just fine as most of them now days can capture video. It should have come with the cables to hook it up from vid card to VHS. That's the way I do it (I've actually done it with both my video card and with my TV Tuner which does capturing as well).

A stand alone capture card is not needed unless you have a really ancient video card that can't do it.

As for software, there are a lot of them. If you have the Nero Suite, you already have it (Nero Vision)

What Video card are you using to do this VHS capturing? So the 'Video Card' has a S-Video In w/audio In? Just curious which cables you are referring to.

[Mike89]

The connector on the vid card is for both in and out. The dongle that comes with it is marked so you can which lines are in and which ones are out. Also most vid cards that capture and TV Tuners that capture already bypass Macrovision on the VHS, at least both mine do.

[MikeyBK]

The connector on the vid card is for both in and out. The dongle that comes with it is marked so you can which lines are in and which ones are out. Also most vid cards that capture and TV Tuners that capture already bypass Macrovision on the VHS, at least both mine do.

So you say that bob_goldwater should be able to connect his VCR to his video card via S-video as he wants or with some other cable? .........Interesting.
I had to get a TV Tuner card (the same WinTV PVR 150 that you have) in order to capture from my VHS tapes since none of my PC's (two of which are very new) had the ability to capture with the installed video cards.

I also found that my WinTV PVR 150 did bypass the macrovision, however certain softwares saw the macrovision despite the WinTV PVR. The WinTV 2000 capture software that works with the TV Tuner card did not see the Macrovision and neither did Windows Media Center. But I prefer the WinTV 2000 since it gives me the option of what bitrate I would like to capture in. Nero Vision Express sucked, IMO, in it's capture quality.

[Mike89]

Come to think of it, I haven't copied a VHS since I got my Hauppage PVR 150. My previous TV Tuner card which was a Leadtek Winfast TV2000XP was the one I used and it did bypass the VHS Macrovision. My current video card I have also not used for this (I recently upgraded). The one I had used was an ATI X800 PE.

With the dongle included with the vid card should be an S Video connector and regular RCA jacks. The RCA jack is what I used to go into the VHS. For some reason my VHS won't accept S Video for the VHS part (it's a dual VHS/DVD and the S Video is just for the DVD part).

I used Nero Vison and the quality was good. The VHS tapes were not of the highest quality themselves (dated) and I was happy with the finished product on the DVD. I have never used another program so have no point of reference though. I just learned on Nero Vision by trial and error. I got where I could make neat backgrounds, menus, bringing in sound to play when menus were displayed. I was taking VHS tapes and was putting two or three of them at a time on a DVD with menus to choose which one to play. I actually had some fun doing it once I got used to the program.