A/V geeks, need your help

[sully]

hey, is there some kind of adapter that i can get to connect my vcr to my computer? i'd like to be able to burn my old video tapes to dvd. i've got the software that will do it, i just need some kinda crazy adapter. i also should point out that it will have to connect to my computer via USB, and i have a mac.

thanks,
sully

[Budman68]

Re: A/V geeks, need your help

<font color="aqua">sully, search for something called "Dazzle DVD Creation Station 200". I believe that is what you'd want. There maybe something newer available by now though. </font>

[sully]

Re: A/V geeks, need your help

thanks, i think i've seen that around before. i'll have to see if it's mac compatible.

[VinceV]

Re: A/V geeks, need your help

What you want is a analog to digital converter. What kind of USB do you have 1.1 or 2.0? If you have 1.1 this may not be possible. If you have a mac you should also have firewire. If you already have a digital video camera you can try to record the vcr to the camera then firewire it to the mac. If not or if that seems to be too much you can try this.

Converter

Look around, there may be others, but this is the 1 I see the most for Macs.

[SeventhSon]

Re: A/V geeks, need your help

Much better/easier to get one of those new DVD recorders with a VHS slot to do exactly what you want.

[YetAnotherOne]

Re: A/V geeks, need your help

One problem you may encounter: the cheaper solutions probably aren't going to synch perfectly to the video signal coming from your source VCR and a consumer grade VCR isn't going ot have a separate video synch output. If you don't get a perfect synch you'll see some fluttery video distortion in your digitized video, usually in the bottom 5-10% of the picture. If you see that it's an artifact of using a system w/o a separate video synch and there's not much to be done to fix it.

We did a bunch of this around 5 years ago and wound up buying a JVC VHS/DV dual deck and doing the analog-&gt;digital conversion on that then sucking the DV tapes into the computer via the firewire connector on our el-cheapo Panasonic DV camcorder. That fixed all of the synch problems we saw with consumer stuff but it was around $1200 for the VHS/DV deck so you'd have to want your vids digitized pretty badly to go that route.

[Shawn Lutz]

Re: A/V geeks, need your help

If you are using straight video and audio that would work going directly a/v out from the camcorder to the mac. Does your machine have a video capture card? if so you can just use standard consumer video and audio cables (RCA). If it doesn't you may want check out the osprey video cature cards, that is what we use for straming video encoders. There is a cheap osprey card, about 100 bucks that will get the video for ya where you can use your existing audio card for audio. Dunno about mac drivers/support since we're a windows shop

[sully]

Re: A/V geeks, need your help

[ QUOTE ]
Much better/easier to get one of those new DVD recorders with a VHS slot to do exactly what you want.

[/ QUOTE ]

yeah, and i've thought about that as well. however, my mac can produce DVDs in HD format already, so if there was some kinda adapter, etc, that is way cheaper to do that, it makes more sense, ya know?

sully

[sully]

Re: A/V geeks, need your help

[ QUOTE ]
What you want is a analog to digital converter. What kind of USB do you have 1.1 or 2.0? If you have 1.1 this may not be possible. If you have a mac you should also have firewire. If you already have a digital video camera you can try to record the vcr to the camera then firewire it to the mac. If not or if that seems to be too much you can try this.

Converter

Look around, there may be others, but this is the 1 I see the most for Macs.

[/ QUOTE ]

not sure what usb version i have, how can i tell? i do have firewire, though. is there an rca/firewire cable? or is this way more involved than that? (sounds like it to me!)

not sure if i have a video capture card...

[YetAnotherOne]

Re: A/V geeks, need your help

It's more involved than a cable. Something in your chain must digitize the analog signal from the RCAs and convert it into a digital signal compatible with your USB/Firewire port.

[skidd]

Re: A/V geeks, need your help

Check your pm

[VinceV]

Re: A/V geeks, need your help

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
What you want is a analog to digital converter. What kind of USB do you have 1.1 or 2.0? If you have 1.1 this may not be possible. If you have a mac you should also have firewire. If you already have a digital video camera you can try to record the vcr to the camera then firewire it to the mac. If not or if that seems to be too much you can try this.

Converter

Look around, there may be others, but this is the 1 I see the most for Macs.

[/ QUOTE ]

not sure what usb version i have, how can i tell? i do have firewire, though. is there an rca/firewire cable? or is this way more involved than that? (sounds like it to me!)

not sure if i have a video capture card...

[/ QUOTE ]

The way your talking( My dvd can burn Hd) I assume you have a new mac. 1st tell me what you have, G4/G5 whatever, when did you get it. Also I doubt you have a HD DVD Burner(if you did you would not be asking us about vcr transfers) as those are not consumer ready yet. Will be, but not yet. I think your confusing your Imovie HD and the new Ilife apps, that can handle HD(apple getting ready fot the HD burners) content as a HD DVD burner. Anyways if it's a newer Mac you definately have USB 2.0 and the converter I showed you will work for you. Price wise these things seem to start at about a hundred bucks all the way on up to the 1000's. Now you have to decide if it's worth it for you. If your only going to do a tape or 2 probably not, if you have alot of stuff and you want to edit it then probably so. You may also want to just look at a vcr/dvd bruner combo, all that stuff is so inexpensive now.

[SeventhSon]

Re: A/V geeks, need your help

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Much better/easier to get one of those new DVD recorders with a VHS slot to do exactly what you want.

[/ QUOTE ]

yeah, and i've thought about that as well. however, my mac can produce DVDs in HD format already, so if there was some kinda adapter, etc, that is way cheaper to do that, it makes more sense, ya know?

sully

[/ QUOTE ]

I have a Mac and the encoder takes all freaking night to burn one DVD. The Mac DVD burner is for people who do video editing/processing and then burn off the final product onto DVD. Compared to a project like that, the final burn is not a PITA. For archiving your VHS library, it is a major PITA. I've gone down this path before.

Do this experiment.

Got a digital video cam? Import it into iMovie through the firewire cable. Then burn a DVD. Time it. Check out the Apple forums on this. People wait all night for a DVD to burn. The reason is because it uses software encoding.

The DVD recorders have hardware based encoding and will it as quickly as it takes to run through the VHS tape...modulo any editing you may want to perform.

That said, if you want to use your onboard Mac software to encode/burn a DVD, this is the best A to D converter on the market. Canopus ADVC-100 (do a google search). It takes the the analog input converts it to digital and uses the firewire interface to your mac. Keeps the audio/video perfectly in sync.

There are probably cards or external units like Dazzle that have hardware based encoding and software that knows how to burn a DVD via your superdrive in near real time. But at that cost, you should just go with the dedicated DVD recorder with a VHS slot. The advantage of something like Dazzle would be included software that might allow you to do some editing prior to burning. But I believe the new DVD recorders allow you to do some editing prior to burn.

[SeventhSon]

Re: A/V geeks, need your help

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
What you want is a analog to digital converter. What kind of USB do you have 1.1 or 2.0? If you have 1.1 this may not be possible. If you have a mac you should also have firewire. If you already have a digital video camera you can try to record the vcr to the camera then firewire it to the mac. If not or if that seems to be too much you can try this.

Converter

Look around, there may be others, but this is the 1 I see the most for Macs.

[/ QUOTE ]

not sure what usb version i have, how can i tell? i do have firewire, though. is there an rca/firewire cable? or is this way more involved than that? (sounds like it to me!)

not sure if i have a video capture card...

[/ QUOTE ]

The mac does not have an *analog* video capture card.

It has a *digital* video capture interface (the firewire interface) that integrates with iMovie. So you can import one of your digital videos from a digital video camera into iMovie, edit it, and burn a DVD using iDVD.

[sully]

Re: A/V geeks, need your help

[ QUOTE ]
The way your talking( My dvd can burn Hd) I assume you have a new mac. 1st tell me what you have, G4/G5 whatever, when did you get it. Also I doubt you have a HD DVD Burner(if you did you would not be asking us about vcr transfers) as those are not consumer ready yet. Will be, but not yet. I think your confusing your Imovie HD and the new Ilife apps, that can handle HD(apple getting ready fot the HD burners) content as a HD DVD burner. Anyways if it's a newer Mac you definately have USB 2.0 and the converter I showed you will work for you. Price wise these things seem to start at about a hundred bucks all the way on up to the 1000's. Now you have to decide if it's worth it for you. If your only going to do a tape or 2 probably not, if you have alot of stuff and you want to edit it then probably so. You may also want to just look at a vcr/dvd bruner combo, all that stuff is so inexpensive now.

[/ QUOTE ]

ahhh, yeah, that makes sense. just got ilife 05, and assumed that it was the same kinda thing. i have a dual500mhz g4 that i bought from a friend of mine.

sounds like it's gonna be a better bet to get a standalone thingy! then again, i'd probably want to do some editing.

sully