Newbie user - am I about to spend money wisely?

[970sxxx]

I'd like to briefly run through what I think I need to do what I want - could someone please confirm I'm not getting something wrong before I spend my money? Thankyou!

I want to transfer my old SVHSC tapes to DVD, also buy a digital camcorder and also put this stuff on DVD. I already have a Pioneer DVD 105 writer in the PC.

I spent ages reading this site, previously knowing nothing about all this, and think I should transfer the SVHSC stuff via the digital camcorder.

Some questions:
1. This site says you can do this with an 8mm/Hi camcorder or VHS video, but doesn't mention SVHSC camcorder. So can I do this?
2. Will a JVC GR-DVL160 do the job?

Also I need a DV/Firewire card. The Pyro 1394 DV looks good as well as cheap. But as I don't know what format it will capture in, I don't know, for the next step, what I am converting to MPEG DVD, so don't know what conversion software I need.

Stupid question now - Authoring. What exactly is this and do I need to do it? All I want to do with the captured video is tweak the colours and sound and cut out scenes I don't want. I was thinking of doing all this with the software included with the card (Ulead videostudio 4)

Then I burn the whole thing to DVD with Nero (which I already have).

One last question - will my PC be up to all this? PIII 800, may be only 64Meg RAM but willing to upgrade memory.

A big THANKYOU to anyone kind enough to plough through this lot to help me!

[videojoe]

You will need to buy a digital camcorder with a analog to digital passthrough such as the sony trv-240 or canon ZR40 (those are the cheapest I know of with this feature) I don't know anything about the JVC you mention. I own the sony TRV-340 and am very happy with the results I get. Much easier than using capture cards.

Firewire card is not a capture card, it is an interface standard, so don't be confused, the pyro firewire card is the right equipment for your purposes.

You will connect the analog out of your SVHSC to the analog in on your new cam. This is the same procedure you would use with a VCR or whatever. Then firewire to the computer.

The capture will be a DV file. This is an AVI file which will consume about 13GB per hour of footage. You will then need to edit it to your liking and then convert it to DVD compliant MPEG2. I get great results with TMPGEng and it only cost $50.

You will definitely need more memory, at least 128mb more, but as cheap as memory is you may as well buy 256, It will only help. You will be looking at some long encoding times with an 800 MHZ machine. But It isnt a big deal if you can just run it overnight. The encoding process seems a lot faster when you are unconsious.

You may also want to use windows 2000 or XP if you arent already. Win 95 and 98 limit file sizes to 4GB, which is about 5 minutes of video.

Hope this helps

[donpedro]

Whaterver wrote videojoe is correct and I might repeat his info. If I am wrong somewhere... plese correct me.

My understanding oh whole process is this.

1. Capturing
For digital camcorder you will need: FireWire (1394) card and software. You can use passthrough function on DV camcorder to capture from any (this is answer to you 1st question... ANY) analog source. This will produce DV AVI file.

2. Editing
Cut, joine, delete unwanted scenes. You will need editing software. On the end you will have (not true always) DV AVI file with stuff that you want.

3. Converting
Now you will need to covert your DV AVI file to DVD comliant MPEG. Again.. software needed.

4. Authoring
Now you need to convert your MPEG file to something that your DVD player will understand. You can (but don't have to) add menu, chapters and so on... On the end you will have VIDEO_TS directory with VOB (and more) files.

5. Burning
Just burn your VIDEO_TS directory (not that simple) to DVD - or + R (or RW) disk and enjoy your new DVD.

6. Playing
You DVD player have to support media that you are trying to burn and on PC you will need software.

So... there is a lot of people that are using different software for each step (especially TMPGEnc for Conversion and some might be even free) but there are softwares that can do all. As an example that I am trying to use now is Pinnacle's Studio 8 (Cap.,Edi.,Conv.,Auth.,Burn - not without problems). You might allready have everything (bundeled with burner) and you need just FireWire card and Digital Camcorder.

PC ??? Hmmm... I think you will have problem during capturing (dropped frames or another weird errors). At lease memory is very important. Processor can be ok if you will stop rest of your applications and backround processes.

That was my opinion.... Good luck !