Buying new Hardware to Convert VHS to DVD.

[Rkermit]

Please let me know which of the following devices work BEST ?

[rhegedus]

Owners will vote for their own device, but it doesn't mean that it's the best.

Just do a forum search for the words 'canopus' and 'aiw'. It will give you all the info you need.

You will then realise that the Canopus is the best.......

[bottle-necked]

ATI products are hard to beat. I've owned several, I've installed many, and I've yet to find a video/capture device thats close to their quality for the $$$.

ATI is the best, and judging by whats being offered on the market today, it's going to remain the best for quite some time to come.

Trust me. If it wasn't the best I wouldn't have one.....

[sacajaweeda]

I get pretty good results with a $39 AverTV PCI card and a little bit of effort.

[hudsonf]

I still prefer my ATI 8500 AIW Card and MMC 8.7 with the settings from lordsmurfs for capturing directly to mpeg2 with but for capturing old vhs tapes my new Sansui DVD-RW Recorder & VCR does a terrific job.

[Zetti]

I have an AiW 8500DV card and I am satisfied with it, although bundled in sw sucks;

I am sure that a card like the 9800 PRO is terrific, but I think it's more game oriented and, if you ain't no gamer and just wanna make video capture - like me - buying an AiW card is a waste of money;

There are cheaper more capture oriented cards. If I were to buy today a capture card, I'd probably take an insight into a hardware USB encoder like ADS Instant DVD + DV, for example;

Zetti

[spectroelectro]

I own both a PCI video cap card (Leadtek, el cheapo) and a Canopus ADVC-100, so don't have a prejudice one way or the other.
Video capture cards seem to produce excellent resutls on some systems and dire problems on others. There's no easy way to figure out whether your mobo / chipset will cause problems or not. When the ATI cards work, they seem to work very well. When they don't, people tear their hair out in trustration.
The one advantage of the Canopus or Datavideo DAC-100 external devices is that they work. Period. No fiddling around with drivers, no mobo chipset incompatibilities.
The one big disadvantage is that any firewire vid cap device (or high-end PCI cap card like the RTX100) won't let you capture you with Virtualdub. That can be a serious issue.

[chaseru]

Your poll implies a solution to turn VHS video into a DVD.

The Canopus device is only for capture. You would still need to edit/encode/author/burn.

The other devices accomplish some of the other tasks.

I captured my VHS collection using JVC HR-DVS2U, which is a dual VHS/minidv deck, but has functions similar to the Canopus device.

I have also had good success capturing using an old Intel video capture card with a BT chipset as well as an AIW.

To me capturing is the easiest part of converting VHS to DVD. The more difficult part is cleaning up video noise and decisions regarding encoding.

[rhegedus]

A lot has been said about tha ability of other cards to capture straight to mpeg, making your task easier.

But, editing mpeg is a bitch - period.

Editing DV is a dream, no two-ways about it - that's what DV is for.

Which ever capture device you get, you're still going to have to author and burn.

The only benefit of the AIW is the capture to mpeg - are you sure you will not have to edit?

[oldfart13]

Like a lot of people, I went the cap card/external device route and was disappointed by the many problems that cropped up. Since then, I have gone to a standalone DVD recorder and transfer to HDD from DVD-RAM route. This works great and my productivity regarding DVD-R production has gone up 100%. I now do all my conversions that way, from the E80 Panasonic recorded to the HDD, edit on the Panny, export to DVD-RAM, transfer to PC HDD with the LG 4040B, author in TMPGEnc DVD Author, burn with Nero. Very straightforward and best of all only minor issues like DVD Author needing better menu templates (though there is an editor in the latest version so you can make your own menus). No more dropped frames, out of sync audio, field order problems, nothing...

This may seem to be an expensive route but when I consider how much time and money I blew going the PC route, it's money well spent...

Happy New Year to you all...