Topic: Video conversions (via PC) help

[kmclain]

Okay guys.  I will be in the market soon for some PC equipment and need a little help.  I'm guessing I just need a top notch video card, but I am sure you guys know a lot more about this stuff than me, so I'd love to get your advice. 

I recently got a DVD burner and i want something that will do 2 things....

1) allow me to hook a VCR to my computer to put my VHS tapes on DVDs 2) allow me to hook my video camera (hi8) to my computer to put my home video on DVD (mostly for shows w/ an audio sync)

My only requirement is it does those two things, and does them without making my video look extremely craptastic.  I don't even use my video camera now because the one time I tried to put it on a disc it looked so bad it was unwatchable.  Video looked good when I hooked my camera to my TV, but the compression was just awful!  and it took like 5 hours. 

I don't mind it taking several hours, but I expect it to not lose quality. 




So is a video card all I need?  If so, can you offer any specific models or specs to look for?


Also - isn't there such a thing as a box that is essentially an a/d, but for video?  if so, whats it called and how much does it cost?

[sabre]

Also - isn't there such a thing as a box that is essentially an a/d, but for video?  if so, whats it called and how much does it cost?

Yes there is, take a look at the Canopus ADVC 110
http://www.canopus.us/US/products/Index/product_index.asp . It's pretty pricey at $300 but it will be able to convert any footage you have on VHS, SVHS, VHS-C, Video8, Hi-8 etc. to the DV-AVI format which is perfect for editing and encoding. The AVI will be at a fixed 3.6 megabytes per second and you will not experience any problems with dropped frames (as long as your PC is stable) and video and audio going out of sync.

Also, check out this thread: http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=43323.msg564873

[silverbullet]

It takes me 5-6 hours to render a 2.5 hr DVD from raw avi files. I try to do this while I'm sleeping or at work. Having a lot of computer RAM and a large hard drive helps. I have a 2.4 GHz AMD with 1.5GB RAM. Software is another issue. I'm currently happy with Sony Vegas until I out grow it. I had problems with Pinaccle Studio but it was a good place for me to start.

[NewHomebrew]

I'll add another vote for the Canopus ADVC series.  Better to have an external box with dedicated processing for conversion than a PCI card.  Just make sure you have a firewire input on your computer.  The value of a video card would be more for the output so you could preview your stuff on a TV if you needed.

If you wanted a more streamlined, quicker way to do it, you could buy a Panasonic HD/DVD recorder and run your tapes into that.  I have seen some great quality conversions done with that machine.