What is the best Capture card/device for me??

[Naynie]

I am soooooo very new at this that it is ALL so confusing. I just purchased a Sony Vaio Laptop FX-170 computer. It has 800 mhz, Pent. 3, 20 GB, has a NTSC video out (if that matters) 256 ram. I would like to be able to put my vhs tapes onto cd's. What would be the best product to get. Where do I begin?? I would like to get the best quality possible, and although would not like to spend a HUGE amount to do this, quality is more important than cost to me at this point. Would love to hear your suggestions for this extrememly unskilled puterer .

Thanks bunches for the help,
Jayne

[AT]

Since yous are loptop, you don't have many choices.

I belivev the Sony has 1394 firewire port. If you have a digital camcorder and it happens to have analog to DV passthrough feature, such as Sony D8 and a few Canons etc. Then you can connect your VHS source to your cam's analog A/V in, and connect its firewire port to your loptops, capture it in DV format and encode it to VCD.

Otherwise, you can buy a external capture device, such as Dazzle Digital video Creater USB, using your loptop's USB port to capture directly to VCD (MPEG-1/2).

Make sure it works with your loptop, you want buy it from a retail store, so in case it doesn't work or you don't like the result, you can return it in time.

[Naynie]

YIPPEE!!!!! AT you may have just solved my problem. I do have a sony D8 that does have the analog signal converter function. Now what?? I'm sorry remember, you're dealing with the village idiot here. What kind of format will it go in as??? What kind of program do I need to use to convert to svcd or vcd??? Can you give me more input. Thanks for ALL your help thus far....I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel...(hope it's just not a train coming)..

Jayne

[AT]

OK, the firewire captured file will be in DV AVI format, the file size is about 3.6MB/sec. So 1 hour of video would take about 14 to 15 GB of your harddisk. use TMPGEnc to encoder the captured DV file.

You can also capture to MPEG in real time use cyberlink Power VCR or Intervideo Wincoder etc. In that case, 1 hour video would only take about 700 MB for VCD, about 1GB for SVCD.

You can search here for all mentioned software. TMPGEnc is free at this time. for other programs, you may want download a trial version, see how it works for you before buying one.