Do I need a capture card or rainbow card to record VHS straight into a PC for conversion to DVD?

pinnacle studios used to do something.... cost about 90-100 quid

make sure you get the right one thou..there are LOTS of dif ones that only put tv on your comp etc..

Get a hardware encoded one as they are better.

Aldi do a decent USB2 one for £30. Comes with all leads and software for authoring DVDs as well.

The quality is pretty good, but my personal favourite is the Plextor ConvertX.

Originally posted by MTheo
pinnacle studios used to do something.... cost about 90-100 quid

make sure you get the right one thou..there are LOTS of dif ones that only put tv on your comp etc..

That's just kind of answered the question I was going to ask - I've just been looking at them on PC World, and most of them say you can watch tv on your pc and record it onto you hard drive, but only about 3 say you can get stuff from your videos. Which made me wonder, can you just get a tv card or does it specifically have to have the capability of being able to transfer from video to pc?

Originally posted by gemma86
That's just kind of answered the question I was going to ask - I've just been looking at them on PC World, and most of them say you can watch tv on your pc and record it onto you hard drive, but only about 3 say you can get stuff from your videos. Which made me wonder, can you just get a tv card or does it specifically have to have the capability of being able to transfer from video to pc?

You can basically get two types of card:

analogue - just picks up the five channels. Some may even get FM radio.

digital - picks up freeview and topuptv channels

They're either internal (fit into a PCI slot) or external (USB / USB2).

Some with have some kind of input on them - composite video or SVHS to allow you to connect video recorders or camcorders.

Don't buy from PC world though!

Originally posted by alchresearch
analogue - just picks up the five channels. Some may even get FM radio.

Some with have some kind of input on them - composite video or SVHS to allow you to connect video recorders or camcorders.

That almost describes the card I've got fitted here (TV, FM, RF/composite/svhs inputs for capturing/playing, IR control8)). Cost me about £45 IIRC, which was a few years ago:O.



Originally posted by alchresearch
Don't buy from PC world though!

To be fair (on this occasion) that's where I got the above card from, when they first opened on Attercliffe Rd... Everything else I've bought from there has had to go back though:).

You can connect a VCR to an RF input on a video card. Just tune it in like you do with a TV. Ideally, you should use a card witch a composite input but if you only have RF then there is nothing to stop you using a VCR with it.

Originally posted by Lurch
You can connect a VCR to an RF input on a video card. Just tune it in like you do with a TV. Ideally, you should use a card witch a composite input but if you only have RF then there is nothing to stop you using a VCR with it.

But not on a digital card for some reason. I have both Haupauge and Showshifter TV software on mine and neither allow for analogue input with my WinTV Nova DVB.

Well, the reason for that is that the RF from a video is analogue, and the digital input on a digital card is....... digital. :wink:

I bought one today.

It's a Pinnicle and is just a usb thing that you stick your aerial (or anything that's co-ax, so the video could go on there or the sky) and it'll play and record from it. It was supposed to be £69.99 but was down to £34.99 and I managed to get a student discount too.
I could do with some video editing software though for the stuff I want to get on from video... :rolleyes:

Originally posted by gemma86
I could do with some video editing software though for the stuff I want to get on from video... :rolleyes:

I use Intervideo WinDVD creator or Nero Vision Express. Both have pretty easy-to-use interfaces.

There are more complex programs out there though (Pinnacle Studio and Adobe Premier being just two).

Originally posted by alchresearch
I use Intervideo WinDVD creator or Nero Vision Express. Both have pretty easy-to-use interfaces.

There are more complex programs out there though (Pinnacle Studio and Adobe Premier being just two).

Doesn't Premier use Pinnacle in some way?
I have a friend who did media at college, and I often crashed her lessons when they were using Premier and it seemed to a bit of both...