Advice on choosing necessary equipment

[ciny]

I have several technical needs that I'm trying to meet as simply as possible. My first is my need to convert old VHS home tapes to DVD (and edit in the process). My second issue involves connecting my pc to my tv for a larger viewing screen. My sons watch their baseball team's games via MLB.tv.

I know that I need a capture card for the VHS to DVD conversion and in reviewing the multitude of choices it dawned on me that I may also be able to get one piece of hardware that also resolves my second problem. Am I headed in the right direction or back on my HS softball team (in left field)?

I currently have a 4-year old pc that probably needs updating, if not replacement, which is an option as soon as I know what I need to purchase to handle my current needs. Here's an attempt to describe my current system:
Windows XP
AMD Athlon
1.4GHz
128MB ram
40GB HDD

If I've omitted something important, forgive me, my head is still spinning from the amount of information I've found on this site.

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

[daamon]

Hi ciny,

Welcome to the forums...

You might want to head over to lordsmurf's site ( www.digitalfaq.com ) - he's a moderator here, and very much into what you're trying to do. He's a wealth of information, so his site may well have something useful.

As for PC specs - the general rule is the more the better. So, a faster processor, more memory (1Gb should be fine) and a larger hard drive coz video files are / can be pretty big. I have an 80Gb hard drive for my operating system and general files, and a 120Gb drive dedicated to video files.

Check out my PC specs: I transfer from miniDV cam to DV AVI @ 13Gb per hour footage, then edit, author to DVD and burn. I'm totally happy with the performance and capability of my system.

Good luck...

[reboot]

The Hauppauge PVR-350 would be ideal.
It will easily run on your current hardware.
Includes realtime hardware mpeg-2 recording, as well as TV out, and FM radio.
Add a good PVR software such as GB-PVR and you can do everything to do with video, on the PC and see it on the TV.
Check out:
www.gbpvr.com
http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_pvr350.html

[ciny]

Thank you for your advice.

[DarrellS]

The only other things that I would recommend would be more memory (512MB) and a second hard drive (at least 80GB).