Basic capture help needed

[OB]

I have read through numerous posts, read numerous articles and reviews but I cannot find what I am looking for. I am new to capturing video and really don't know what I need. Here is what I am trying to accomplish and I appreciate any help/advice you can give.

I would like to post movies on our company website (not streaming but rather download to view) of our machinery. This would have to be only a couple of minutes long at a clip. The quality doesn't need to be like watching a great movie but still viewable with regards to the time it takes to download it.

I have the movies on VHS and need to covert them to some standard form (avi, mpeg) What kind of computer should I be looking for, what type of card would be good and what software should I use. I guess an overall good system (preferably NT or 2000) setup with above average results.

Sorry this is so newbie but I don't want to spend lots of $$$ on something that may or may not work.

Thanks again
David

[FiEND]

this would easily work with most machines. my celery 600 can capture ntsc using 22%-30% cpu load.

the most important thing here is whether the people viewing the videos are on intranet (speedy) or internet (as slow as the slowest dialup).

a standard 2min VCD is about 20MB so brutal on a dialup connection.

you have to keep this file standard so anyone can view it on any PC, codecs like mpeg, asf/wmv, or numerous intel avi codecs for example.

non standard sized avi, say microsoft mpeg4 (asf/avi/wmv) can be a very nice video size and quality with relation to byte size. WinME/XP have the video compressor built in so very easy to make the videos once you have captured them. Other O/S you can download windows media encoder (windows movie maker).

rm or real media, the same as mov from crapple craptime are similar and can be OK but require special programs to view them that are really aweful and should be avoided like the plague.

so what you are trying to do is very easy but will most likely take a few days and many hours to perfect. the requirements arent great for system specs so the only important thing is capture card.

in the end though, you can have a media clip that is both downloadable and streaming depending on the connection of the downloader and server.

[holistic]

Have a read of the following then come back.

Good reading
http://www.aluminumstudios.com/digitalvideo/index.html


Capture
http://www.vcdhelp.com/mjpeg.htm
Since you have a VHS source there are 2 main options

1. cheap analog capture card and capture in avi THEN convert to MPEG . Down side is a reasonably fast harddrive is required.
2. get a MPEG capture card (example : the ATI - All in Wonder) and capture real time MPEG. Down side - the cards are more expensive than the generic analong capture cards.

Option 2 would proberly suit your needs better.http://www.vcdhelp.com/capturecards.php
read here for reviews on cards.
I have used the asus 7700 deluxe and found it quite user friendly. Others swear by the MatroxG400 or G450eTV.

The OS i use is win98SE and it is all you need.
Equipment : Like FiEND said anything over 600 mhz , 128 Mb RAM and good 20+GB fast hardrive will suffice.
O yes a sound card if you want sound
A good quality motherboard wouldn't hurt either. - asus, gigabyte, abit, ... examples.

[mikewg]

Or you could pay me to take your VHS tapes and convert them to ASF, RM, and MPG files for you (so you can choose which file you want the most). There's got to be some company money floating around for a project I could do for you so you don't have to invest the time and money in equipment, settings, etc. Email me: mikewg@hotmail.com