Assistance Please - VHS To DVD Via Laptop.

snoop69

snoop69

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Hi all,

Hopefully someone here has done what i hope to do ;)

Im looking to transfer some vhs recordings to dvd via my Lenovo T61 Laptop.

Could some kind person point me in the right direction regarding cables &
software please?

Thanks in advance.
 
you will need hardware too methinks, maybe a tv card with an av line in, will most likely come with the software required to rip the vhs to the hard drive. Then use your software of choice to make dvd's of the files (I like nero though the dvd burner in windows vista/7 is good too). Instead of burning you could index the rips as like 700mb avi files to an external hd or even full quality ones as big external or internal drives are cheap enough.

An alternative would be a dvd recorder which would hook straight up to the video player.
 
What you'll need is something which will enable you to capture the VHS source via a USB or Firewire conection. You don't have an analogue video in capability on the laptop (although these never work very well anyway).

I use a Canopus device (ADVC-100) which takes the signal from a VHS source and converts it into a DV format signal. This is then fed to a PC via Firewire. It works very well, with the DV feed being recognised through any standard video editing software (Adobe Premiere, Ulead VideoStudio, Microsoft Windows Movie Maker, etc.). The DV feed is exactly the same as that provided by a DV digital camcorder. The Canopus device can still be purchased from sources such as Amazon - different models are available including the ADVC-55 and ADVC-300. The Canopus devices are able to cope with copy protection such as Macrovision.

There are USB devices available but I've never used one. I don't know what output format they will provide but again it looks as though they provide a format that can be captured by standard software. This link points to a fairly cheap device which includes a cable and Ulead VS software.

http://www.video-2-pc.co.uk/

Hope this helps.

Chris
 
If you have a digital camcorder with analog (s-video or composite) inputs and a firewire (aka iLink or s400 or IEEE 1394) output, then you can use that.

Simply connect the VCR to the inputs of the camcorder, connect the camcorder to the firewire port on your laptop (4 pin for most camcorders and Windows laptops, 6 or 9 pin on Apple, so check you have the correct cable). Then open up movie editing software of your choice, the camcorder should show up as a standard DV device, and then press play on the tape and import on the software.
 
Hi guys & firstly thanks for the replies & advice.

I was hoping not to have to purchase any extra hardware but if i have too
then so be it.

I have a Sony Mini DV camcorder & a Firewire port on the laptop so hopefully
i have what i need to get started.

I also have Sony Vegas 7 & Canopus Pro-Coder software so capturing &
editing isnt a problem.

I will have a route through my many cables & see what i can put together as
i think i will give the vhs - cam - laptop method a try & see how i get on :thumbs:
 
Do these let you copy purchased videos? They're protected with Macrovision(?) IIRC?
I've got some stuff that's just not available on DVD and I'd like to get them digitised before the tapes finally die.
 
Jim.R said:
Do these let you copy purchased videos? They're protected with Macrovision(?) IIRC?
I've got some stuff that's just not available on DVD and I'd like to get them digitised before the tapes finally die.
Click to expand...

Mine appears to. I tried a dedicated DVD recorder & it refused but the Video-USB seems to ignore it
 
I bought a cheap DVD recorder and copied all mine, much faster too and cost me £20.00 on Fleabay, Can even plug video camera into it to copy direct.No need for Laptop/PC
 
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