PC to VHS to PC

[Lepper]

Can anyone help me out here?

What I want to do (and i'm almost positive it can be done just don't know how) is record what i'm doing on my PC to VHS, i.e. playing games, stuff like that....then take what i have from VHS and record it on my PC then edit it into a movie.

I currently have a WINTV GO capture card, Athlon 1200, 256 RAM, GF2 64mb vid card. Can I use the WINTV card to send video to my VCR or should I take the card back and get a different one?

Thx in advance.

[Beretta]

What you want to do is possible. I don't know about your particular card, you'll have to read the docs, but basically you'll need a card with dual head support. For Matrox's (like my G450eTV) there is a setting called Clone Display, which basically pumps a duplicate of your monitor out to your TV/VCR. All you gotta do is hit record.

Depending on how fast your system is (maybe you have some crazy powerful box, or a really good raid adapter) you can use a program like SnagIT to just record your computing session straight to an .avi file. (altho, I doubt this would work well for games, as they are usually pretty processor intensive, and may even use some sort of an overlay mode or something)

The second scenario would be the preferable way to go, because you wouldn't incur any of the quality loss that Computer->VHS->Computer is going to incur.