Eye TV vs. Terapin for VCD creation

[jphuber1959]

What's the best option for VCD creation - Eye TV or standalone Terapin ?

My computer is a G4 450 - 700+ megs of RAM, Pioneer 104 superdrive.

primary objective is to archive many old videotape, some TV shows, etc

[curryman]

I bought a terapin about 18 months ago and now it just sits there gathering dust.
Don't get me wrong, if your source is dvd or satelite then the quality is not too bad considering the instant speed, but for video tape transfer i would leave well alone,
at best the picture will be just about bearable thats if the terapin doesn't start to have trouble reading your source(happens quite alot with tapes)
then you end up with a vcd that plays and the picture freezes but the audio carries on then the video comes back on where ever the audio is, if you get my meaning,
anyway bottom line don't use it for backing up video tapes

[SCB]

I have an EyeTV. You'll like it more if you use it mainly for its TiVO-like capabilities rather than for archiving old VHS tapes. There are other better USB options you can use for archiving....

[AntnyMD]

I'll add another vote to the "skip the Terapin" group. I have a Terapin, and it is also gathering dust. It works great and fast for dubbing DVDs or anything else that you can connect to it via S-Video, but it seems the Terapin makes slightly nonstandard discs.

MPEG analyzers state the video is 320x240, whereas NTSC VCDs are supposed to be 352x240; I cannot get VCD Copy X to rip anything recorded on a Terapin; audio sync is an issue when played back in VideoLAN (though, no sync issue when played back in Quicktime for OS 9); the machine runs so hot you can cook an entire breakfast on it; it makes way more coasters than it should for the price.

[nanz1]

I've had a Terapin for about 8 months and have had no problems. As long as you use it for a couple of hours and then let it cool off or put a small fan pointed toward the back side of it and it can run even longer with no problems. This helps the problem with audio sync and keeps things running smoothly. Its not dvd quality but it works very well for me. Use good cables and that has helped the quality issue for me as well.