VCR to computer- some help getting started?

[ker-plop]

I have so many videotapes in my room, it's not even funny. I'd like to start getting what's on them into movie files and saving them to (smaller) CDs, but I don't know where to start. I know technology exists to do this, but I need something as cheap as possible that delivers quality. Can someone point me in the right direction? Thanks.

EDIT: This is a Mac question, too.

[tomlee59]

First, you want cheap, AND quality on CDs...not so easy. You're going to have to accept some compromises in one or more of those dimensions, I'm sorry to say. But you knew that already, in your heart of hearts.

There are several possibilities. I'll mention some that I have used; no doubt, others will chime in with their own preferences and recommendations. Consider them all.

First, target format: To squeeze, say, a 2hr movie onto a single CD, some possible choices are, in order of quality (and increasing encode time), (X)VCD, DivX and h.264. Most folks on this forum will say that XVCD looks like crapola. It is roughly the quality of VHS overall, but different (better SNR in low-motion scenes, but artifacts are visible and occasionally annoying in scenes with a lot of motion). DivX is popular because it does a much better job, and encode times are reasonable with less than cutting-edge hardware. h.264 can look superb, but is incredibly demanding of CPU horsepower.

Next, hardware: There are standalone video capture boxes that will handle most of the heavy lifting of capturing and encoding into these formats, leaving your Mac to perform any editing you might want to do, and then burn the result. These boxes typically run between 100 and 200 bucks. There are even units that will directly encode into h.264 (impressive, considering that the computational burden can be hundreds of GOPS!).

Another option is to get a standalone DVD recorder. This can capture and directly save video as DVD onto writeable DVD media. Then you can take that DVD, pop it into your Mac, and convert that result into a CD-compatible format. The hardware cost is about the same, and in the process you end up making both a DVD and a CD version of the movie. This is now the method that I use most often these days, although my USB vidcap box still gets an occasional workout (to directly produce VCDs in one go).

As I said, there are many variations on these themes, and I'm certain that you'll be hearing about them from others shortly.

[dnix71]

If these are commercially produced vhs tapes, then you may need a "video stabilizer" to remove copy protection, especially if you intend to copy from your vhr to a dvr.

MCMinONE sells one for about $20.

[ker-plop]

OK, but what's a good brand name for these VCR-to-computer streamers, and where could I find one?

[terryj]

the best hands down is the Canopus ADVC-100.
It's replacement brother, the ADVC-110 is just
as reliable a unit. You can essentially capture your
footage direct from your VCR via RCA (composite) or
S-VHS output into the mac via FW input, and thus
use any Mac NLE program from iMovie ( FREE) to
FCE or FCP ( not so free) to ingest, edit, and transcode
to your hearts desire your captured footage.

available just about anywhere,
newegg has a good price on the advc-110.