How is a computer connected to a DVD player, VCR?

[coody]

A laptop has only DV and USB ports and DVD burner. Is it possible to connect to a DVD player and VCR record the program?

[Super Warrior]

Are you talking about recording video on your laptop, from a source like VCR, and then burning to DVD? You'd need a Tv tuner or other device to have the video go to your laptop.

Not sure what you mean. Could you please restate and be clearer about what your trying to do?

[guns1inger]

Or use an analogue - DV conversion device such as the advc-110 or advc-300. You might even be able to use a DV camera if it has analogue pass-through

[overloaded_ide]

A laptop has only DV and USB ports

I guess you mean a Firewire port and USB ports.

A Digital Video camera with pass through ports may work, it will have analog inputs for video and sound and output a Digital Video signal you can feed to your computer. The camera does the conversion of the signal for you. You'll need software on the sytem then to convert the DV files to DVD.
So many cameras out there. I dought you will find any with a TV tuner though, but who knows? Not a problem to input VCR output but you won't be able to hook directly to a Cable TV type source.

There are alot of external devices out there that will let you input a source like TV or VCR and transfers the data to the computer using firewire or USB conections. I have not used any myself.
Doing some searching here should bring up lots of stuff about them. Maybe search terms like "external capture device"
As with anything else, some stuff is junk not worth having, and some stuff is very good or maybe great. Lot's of it out there.

Another option may be a standalone DVD recorder since they are getting so cheap now. I don't have mine yet, should be here Monday according to UPS tracking. So right now I can't say if this cheapy is very good, one other user says it he likes it for 2hour mode anyway.
I just bought a SV2000 settop recorder for total $65 (shipping and tax included), but I saw today the sale price is over and it's $79 again online. Same price in stores.

At $79 and tax or there abouts, depending what you want to do you might be as well off to buy one of those, burn a RW disk in it, and then Edit the DVD on the PC if you want to do that. The quality of the video is the main question to me. If it's as good as other external devices costing as much or more, then might as well use the recorder.

For long recordings llike over 2hours or anything I wanted to have the best quality and fancy optons I would still capture to computer in AVI or such.
With a laptop I geuss you are limited to external devices and maybe more limits also, perhaps due to lack of expansion options?

Is it possible to connect to a DVD player and VCR record the program?

You don't really say much about what you want to do, so the above kinda sums up the basic options to put content onto the laptop.

If your wanting to take content off the laptop, like if your making cartoons or other video on it, just burn the DVDs, play those in some other DVD player and conect that output to the VCR inputs if you want to make tapes also.

I see no reason though to connect a DVD player to the laptop if it has a burner, you just rip a DVD to the laptop if you want it there using the DVD drive.

Some other things unknown that might need to be considered is like how mobile you plan to be with this. If your only computer is a laptop and your just doing this at home it doesn't matter. But if your gonna be flying around the country (or world) and just using what ever is at the other end for getting the source signal, like moms VCR when you get there, then size may matter and you might want something small like the size of a speaker and not as large as a DVDrecorder.

Newegg.com is a good place to buy allot of things, you could check external capture devices there to see what they have to get an Idea, and also look around other places for other items.

[coody]

Thank you for your replies. If a DVD player or VCR is connected to a DVD recorder, there will have a Macrovision problem. So, I would like to connect the DVD player to the PC and the PC does the recording. You suggested using the DV video camera as a bridge. Do I have to save the movie into the hard drive first and then copy onto a DVD disc? Can I capture and copy the program onto the DVD disc simultaneously and what software is good to complete the project?

[solarfox]

You will still have a Macrovision problem, since DV cameras and analog-to-DV bridges are also programmed to look for the MV signal, and will refuse to record or convert once they detect it.

To get around this, you will need a "video stabilizer" or a Time-Base Corrector to suppress the MV signal. (With one of these, then you could also go directly from the VCR to a set-top DVD recorder without needing the PC, as well.)

[overloaded_ide]

Do I have to save the movie into the hard drive first and then copy onto a DVD disc? Can I capture and copy the program onto the DVD disc simultaneously and what software is good to complete the project?

You will have the macrovision problem with about any modern device that does recording if Macrovisoin is present, and also many times when it is not if the tape is of lower quality such as old, worn, poorly recorded, etc...
This is why we often need a device to deafeat the protectons to do even our own home recording that we own the rights to ourselfs. NO-ONE has the right to restrict my making copies of baby movies I recorded 15years ago on VHS-C! But due to age and lower quality most devce block the recordings as being Macrovision protected, therefore I have a LEGAL reason to break such protection traps!

As far as direct burning to DVD, no you can not do that on the PC. You will be captureing the movie to the hard drive in some form of files. AVI, MEG, or such dependingon the capture methode. These files are not DVD's! You will have to at least use an authoring program to make a DVD before buring one.
Depending on the type of files captured you may have to convert them to MEG2 bebore authoring also. Some programs may capture the incomming signal and save directly to MEG2 for you.

To just capture the tape and burn the DVD disk on the fly (at same time directly) without doing much else you would probably have to use a stettop recorder instead of the PC.

Unless it's a brand new tape recorded yeasterday on a brand new VHS camcorder there's a great chance you may run into the protection crap rather real or false. Not quite that bad but it happens alot!