Video card advice

[Amiduffer]

Hi everyone, I need some PC advice since I'm generally clueless about that end. I recently set up a YouTube account with the hope of putting up a few self produced video's. I just remembered, that in my closet, is an Amiga video tutorial I made in '95 on how to set up an A500 that was produced for my broadcasting school video class project. Its something I thought some of you would get a chuckle out of. Its on a VHS tape, and so, I'd like to transfer it in order to get it online.

So, what are my options? There's an extra desktop PC we have around the office here thats not being used for much, and would work if I got a video capture card to put in it. Any recomendations on any basic cards? I'm planning to get a laptop in the near future, can that be used to take video off a VHS machine? Thanks for any advice.

[dylan030]

i recommend this card http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815100113
ive had it for about a year and never had trouble with it

[CannonFodder]

Just by an el-cheapo OEM TV card and play the VHS straight into it.

[Vlabguy1]

buy a DVD burner..you know the component type..much like a VCR..Just burn the tape to dvd..

[Amiduffer]

dylan030 wrote:
i recommend this card http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815100113
ive had it for about a year and never had trouble with it

I don't know dylan, the reviews were not too good on the newegg site.  :-D You should post a review if the card works fine for you.

OEM, hmmm. Lets check. At least they seem somewhat inexpensive.

[Ross1]

Amiduffer wrote:
Hi everyone, I need some PC advice....
So, what are my options? There's an extra desktop PC we have around the office here thats not being used for much, and would work if I got a video capture card to put in it. Any recomendations on any basic cards?

The PC needs to be at least a P3-800mHz in order to capture without droping frames.
On eBay you will find many ATI All in wonder graphics cards that will do a great job. This way you dont have two different cards in the machine. The All in wonder 9600 or better will do just fine and gives you some decent graphics on the PC as well and goes for less than $60 on ebay

I'm planning to get a laptop in the near future, can that be used to take video off a VHS machine? Thanks for any advice.

Yes but you would need to get an external USB capture device and they cost around $100 for a decent one.

[Ral-Clan]

The advice someone gave above to purchase a stand-alone PVR-DVD recorder is a good way to go.  You can transfer the VHS to DVD this way, then pop the DVD into any computer (like your future laptop), rip the video and edit it in software.

That way, you are not tied to a specific video card that only has drivers for a certain OS, or a a piece of hardware that (obviously) won't fit in your laptop.

Plus, you can keep the DVD recorder deck and use it for general TV recording, etc.  

DVD decks also come with USB and firewire inputs for video cameras, digital cameras, USB drives and flash memory sticks.

[Ross1]

ral-clan wrote:
The advice someone gave above to purchase a stand-alone PVR-DVD recorder is a good way to go.  You can transfer the VHS to DVD this way, then pop the DVD into any computer (like your future laptop), rip the video and edit it in software....

True but a good one will cost at least $100 and the Hard drive DVD recorders costing much more as the cheep ones do a poor job and do not last long (make sure you do some review reading before you buy). I would recommend nothing less than a DVDr $150 unit.

[KThunder]

as long as you have a decent cpu and usb2 port id try one of the usb adapters. it is a lot simpler than a pci card if you are only going to occasionally use it. hauppage makes one and all of their pci stuff is great

[Amiduffer]

Thanks everyone. Its nice to have some guidelines to work with so I can save some of the tapes at the office too. I'll keep you updated if I get this A500 tutorial online.

[motrucker]

Ross1 wrote:

The PC needs to be at least a P3-800mHz in order to capture without droping frames.

Surely anything that old and slow has LONG been put out to pasture..........  

[Ross1]

Dont laugh but my work PC is still a win 98SE box with a P3-450mHz so thats not nessisaraly true.
My home PC on the other hand is AMD 2core 5000+. He did mention that the PC we wanted to use was one that was lying around the office so it could be a slower machine.

[DamageX]

motrucker wrote:

Surely anything that old and slow has LONG been put out to pasture..........  

In the other room I have a K6-3 400 with a bt848 PCI card that I use to record TV. At 320x240 and 30fps, compressing with xvid in realtime the cpu is maxed out though.

Some devices (probably most external ones) have hardware MPEG or MJPEG encoders so you don't need as much CPU speed.