8mm camcorder to vcd????

[stevep]

Can anyone kindly direct atotal novice to some place on the net where I can learn how to transfer video from an 8mm camcorder tape onto my pc then burn it to vcd? I need to know basically ...everything including how to set up a physical connection between camcorder and pc, hardware & software needed etc.
manythanks
(wouldn't u think searching for "transfer camcorder tapes to vcd" on Google would come up withsomething more useful than adverts for companies who charge a small fortune for doing it?)

[Karate Media]

One option is a device such as the Dazzle DVC 80. It is a USB 1.0 device that captures audio and video via RCA inputs and transfers it to .avi (at about 320x240 or so resolution) via, obviously, your usb connection. Other companies, including ADS, make similar products as well. Just plug your camcorder into the DVC 80 via RCA cables (it might also include an S-video connection - I can't recall right now) and you're ready to go...

The Dazzle DVC 80 costs about $60 and includes some fair-to-middlin' video editing software. This software will also convert your .avi to mpeg1 (the necessary format for VCD), but I cannot recall if it will burn a VCD for you.

For VCDs (which I don't make many of now that I bought the dvd burner!), I have used NTI CD Maker Plus, which came with Broderbund's Extreme Media Digital Studio (which I luckily found for a good price, since the NTI app was the only semi-useful thing in there). Many of the popular CD burning apps have a "Create VCD" function - NTI's has always worked fine for me, though -- just choose "Create VCD", drag the mpeg1 into the burn folder (or window or stage, or whatever you call that area) and click OK.

This would be one of the cheapest options. Dazzle as a company kinda sucks (check out their customer forum one day!), and other companies make similar products for about the same price - I just have experience with the DVC 80 (as well as the more expensive Hollywood DV-Bridge) The quality may not be the best (using an encoder such as TMPGEnc rather than the included encoder may help), but as I said, this would be the cheapest solution. I found my old DVC 80 for less than $30 and it served its purpose well for the time that I needed it.

After that, price and quality go up, depending on your needs (and financial liquidity). As you can tell, I am a newbie to this forum, but I do know that there is a wealth of information on this website (all the how-to links over to the left, as well as the Capture Card section) that will help you figure out what you need. Just ask yourself what sort of projects you want to transfer, and how much money you want to spend.

I would advise someone new to all of this to start out cheaply with a DVC 80/USB-type device, see how happy they are with the initial results, then move on up to the higher ticket items later on if necessary.

Forget Google -- all your VCD/DVD resources are right here! I hope this helped...

[CogoSWSDS]

I can't say that I would recommend a USB-based solution, especially USB 1.0 or 1.1. USB 2.0 might be OK as the bandwidth is much greater for USB 2.0 (close to firewire, the way I understand it), or a PCI-based card. I really don't care about real-time MPEG encoding, I can have the computer encode while everyone's in bed. What I'm interested in is how cheaply I can get decent video. To that end, I have a Hauppauge! WinTV Go card to capture to AVI. Since I'm running 98SE I capture to segmented AVI files and use AVISynth (freeware!) to stitch the AVI's together and frameserve to TMPGEnc (also free for MPEG1). With the computer I have I can encode a 1-hour AVI to MPG1 in 1:30 to 1:45 depending on filters, etc...

Just my $0.02
CogoSWSDS

[Karate Media]

Actually, I once used the DVC 80 to capture video to a laptop (!) and used that .avi file in a (locally) televised commercial. I was fairly impressed with the quality. Admittedly, I put the footage against a background so that I didn't have to have it at full 640x480 resolution (not too much smaller, though), but it looked fine, nobody complained, and I got paid!

Not to knock Cogo --- his 2 cents is worth the same two pennies that my 2 cents is! -- but if you are new enough to all of this and maybe aren't that comfortable installing a PCI card (maybe it will void your warranty or you have back luck with electrical devices or whatever), then I wouldn't knock a cheap USB 1.0 device as a start.

I currently use a firewire DV bridge (all my PCI slots are full!), but I would have never bought it, or even have started doing more (semi)professional video capture work, without having first used that DVC 80 and gotten my feet wet on the cheap (and without cracking the case).

My 2 cents (which I guess is up to 4 cents now...)

[macleod]

I would advise going to a little known site at www.dvdrhelp.com
It is a real small site, maybe about 4-5 people on it with a post or 2 a week. I spent about 3 days looking for the following guide that should start you off on the right foot : https://www.videohelp.com/forum/userguides/94288.php

dvdrhelp.com is an Ok site. I mean, the newbie section is buried real far down into the site, but I managed to find it after a considerable amount of time here: https://www.videohelp.com/newbie

I did a seach on this inferior, subject matter lacking site by clicking https://www.videohelp.com/search
and typing 8mm. just what I have come to expect from this crappy site, I ONLY found 412 responses.

In order to help you out a little more, I, apparently not learning my lesson, clicked here https://www.videohelp.com/capturecards and found out that there were 220 cards listed. Not near enough information to make a decision with.

I figured that since there isn't any information at dvdrhelp.com, I could maybe help you out, but when I checked your user profile I found nothing. Guess I'll need to get out my crystal ball to assist you.

1. read the guides that everyone on this site has made to assist novices
2. Fill out your user profile or at least give us some information to work with
3. Tell us how much you want to spend

For the spoon fed answer you are looking for,

Buy a ATI TV wonder card ($20-$40) If you are experienced enough to get into your computer, get PCI, otherwise get a USB). Use the ATI software that comes with it. It will have instructions for connecting your
camcorder. Capture mpeg 1 quality 352x240 real time. Make sure you do not capture over 700 meg so that it will fit on a CD. Buy Nero, burn as a VCD (Nero has a wizard for making VCD's). Before doing any of this, check to see if the dvd player you plan to use can play VCD, (here's a freebie), by clicking here https://www.videohelp.com/dvdplayers and inputting the model number. Have your wife tell you that you wasted a lot of time and money making something that looks nowhere near close to the VHS tape. Come back to forum and read the guides and learn about video creation. Purchase a DVD player that will play CVD, throw your ATI bundled software away because it is crap. Find a copy of virtual vcr or IUVCR. Learn to tweek drivers and what not. Capture at uncompressed 640x480 resolution using huffy codec. Read another guide and learn about TMPGENC or CCE or Main Concept Encoder. Decide on TMPGENC because it is cheap, Convert your video from AVI to CVD and burn onto CD. Have wife tell you that the colors are off a little. Go nuts tweeking it until you realize that she is trying to get you to give up but you are too damn stubborn to. Buy a DVD burner and capture a CVD quality. Finally burn to DVD (making sure your DVD player can handle DVD) and finally be happy with the results.


Hope this helps.

[Karate Media]

Hey smart guy (aka mcleod)

your outlined plan was funny, but did you have to rub his nose in the ol' "check the guides, dumb-ass" routine?

I basically said the same thing (that dvdrhelp.com was a great resource for him), but I did it without trying to shame him and after I gave him some (hopefully) useful advice.

That said, my wife really doesn't understand why the hell I mess with this stuff...

[macleod]

I was debating whether or not to put something at the bottom of the post that said something the the effect of " Yea, watch out for this smart ass guy named macleod. He gives out information that you can find out just by looking at the site. ", but that would prove that I am more of a jerk (note, the statement "he gives out information that you can find out just be looking at the site) .

I am really not a jerk, I really enjoy helping people out. Spoonfeeding, however, aint gonna happen.

I hope the original poster stays with it and becomes a valuable member of this community. I hope I didn't shame him/her by my reply. I hope he/she realizes that they need to do some research and their are no plug and play answers.

I just have a real hard time helping someone that has not even looked at ANYTHING this site has to offer. It is an insult to anyone of the fine folks here that have posted (other than those "help me" people) questions/answers, contributed to the guide area, and all the rest. Everyone (except for one banned individal) on this site does a good job of helping people.

Anyway, off my soapbox...

As far as your wife, do what I did, tell her that when you have it all figured out, you are going to do DVD's of your wedding and of the kid's being born (you have to scare her with the VHS tape being destroyed over time thing to get her in the mood) and it will be real cool. She'll think of her little babies sole eroding and encourage you. (hmmmm. maybe I should make a guide for that). Or maybe, I should have it as a poll, "what smoke to you blow up your wife/husband's ass in order to purchase a dvd burner???"

[Karate Media]

As a newbie to this forum, I guess I have a soft spot in my heart for the kid...plus i like to act big like i know what the f*** I'm talking about!

Anyway, as for "what smoke do you blow up your wife's ass in order to purchase a dvd burner???" -- I just asked her "How much did you just spend renovating the kitchen?" and that shut her up. I also promised to put the wedding video on DVD as a backup excuse, too (after she threw a few pots and pans at me)