What kind of device do i need to transfer VHS to my HD?

[Beautiful Alone]

It would be nice to transfer VHS to my HD and then covert it to a CD.

[aragorn234]

Beautiful with 411 posts to your name I can not believe that you are asking this question.
All this sort of basic info can be found on the site in guides and under numerous forums.

Anyway here is a brief run down as far as I know.
1. A halfway decent PC (or Mac)
2. A capture card (many new graphics cards have TV in)
3. Software to capture the analog data and convert it to a digital format
4. Software that can convert that digital format in to a file type that can be read on your DVD player (if that is what you require)

This sort of advise is best done via reading the guides for ideas on what is best for you and your needs.

[Beautiful Alone]

I thought that you need a TV Turner to connect to the PC, but not sure.

A decent PC? why is a decent PC required in this process? It's just transfering files.

and what do you mean by ...

capture the analog data and convert it to a digital format

[richdvd]

It's just transfering files

Something they call "capturing", a far cry from merely transfering files.

[Beautiful Alone]

So..all i needed is a TV turner or a video card with TV input on it? How long does it take to transfer a 30min VHS to the HD?

[fmctm1sw]

So..all i needed is a TV turner or a video card with TV input on it? How long does it take to transfer a 30min VHS to the HD?

30 minutes.

[US Guy]

you must be blonde

[Beautiful Alone]

nt

[rankz]

Its fairly straight-forward. There are two ways to do it.

1. Buy a video capture card. These can be bought around £20 for an internal PCI card. These cheap cards offer great quality for VHS tapes as i have one.

2. Buy a video capture card that is an external card. They plug into a spare USB slot, but these cards come at around £50. They also offer great quality for VHS tapes.

Personally i use method 1, as it takes up less space on your desktop and is much cheaper but same quality. My card is a Leadtek WinFast VC100 (£20) which is great. Check out Leadtek's site if you are interested. I hope this post helped you.

[handyguy]

We have a big Capture section on Left column....

[Shocker Milwaukee]

We sure do.

[jimmalenko]

So..all i needed is a TV turner or a video card with TV input on it? How long does it take to transfer a 30min VHS to the HD?

30 minutes.

Hang on a minute, doesn't a 30min capture take half an hour ????

[grossjamesh]

Here is how I do it.

VHS -> Home theater -> Monitor out -> WinTV PVR USB 2.0 -> WinTV2000 -> Capture at DVD quality -> HD.

Works every time.

By the way my 30 minute captures only take 1.8 million millisec.

[jimmalenko]

Beautiful with 411 posts to your name I can not believe that you are asking this question.

If you have a look at some of those 411, you'll believe it.

All this sort of basic info can be found on the site in guides and under numerous forums.

First you need to capture. More info can be found here.

Then you need to convert to the end format you require. More info can be found here.

Many many people here including myself have had great success with Canopus products. I have an ADVC-100, which enables me to capture from any analog or digital source and outputs to either DV (extremely high quality AVI) or any other analog or digital source. It is probably overkill for what you wish to do, but there is the ADVC-50 and ADVC-55 also, the only difference with these is that they cannot output back to analog.

The generic process is to capture to you Hard Drive in either MPEG or AVI format. Edit if necessary and then convert to the final format, or leave as is if you already have what you want. Author if necessary and burn.