TV-Tuner Card

[jmsrickland]

I just bought a AVerMedia AverTV GO 007 FM Plus capture card and installed it on my not so new PC. I got it at a local computer store for 50 bucks so it wasn't a real big investment.

Everything works just fine and I like it for what it's worth. I can run the RF cable from the Satellite receiver to the composite input of a VCR sitting next to my PC. The output from the VCR goes into the RF connection on the capture board.

It's pretty good and the quality of the TV and/or the VCR video and sound is as good as the source. While I am pipeing in a TV show or a VCR movie I can save the video to my hard drive in MPEG-2 format (other MPEG formats are also selectable).

The only thing I don't like is that the output is saved only in MPEG. Maybe this is true with any TV-Tuner card, I don't know. I would like to now burn the output saved video to a DVD. For me, I have to burn DVD VOB files in order to have a valid DVD that will play in my DVD player on top of the big console TV.

Now this means I have to convert the MPEG file to VOB files.

OK, to get to the point. Is there any TV-Tuner cards out there that already has the feature built into the adapter software that can save the output to VOB files or if only to MPEG files is there one that has a mpeg to VOB conversion feature already built into the TV-Tuner card software?

If there are none then OK, I will deal with this through some other 3rd party conversion program but if there are one or more TV-Tuner cards that already has this feature can someone tell me the name and model and the approx. cost?

Like I said above, I have a PC that is not so new. It is about 3 to 4 years old. It has a Pentium Celeron chip set running at 950MHz with 512MB RAM. The operating system is Windows 2000 Pro. I definitely have the HD space capacity.

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

[yoda313]

The only thing I don't like is that the output is saved only in MPEG. Maybe this is true with any TV-Tuner card

No the ATI all in wonder series can record to avi as well as many others.

Now this means I have to convert the MPEG file to VOB files.

Yes you need to "author" them using a program like ULEAD or TMPGENC DVD AUTHOR to make the dvd sturcture and then you burn it to a disc.

Is there any TV-Tuner cards out there that already has the feature built into the adapter software that can save the output to VOB files or if only to MPEG files is there one that has a mpeg to VOB conversion feature already built into the TV-Tuner card software?

What you might want is to get a standalone dvd recorder if you want a ready to use dvd with basic menus. They record directly to the disc and it only takes a short time to finalize it. When you record to the computer you have to author it to dvd mode which means you get a video_ts folder with the vobs inside it. Then you burn the dvd. That is the way you make a dvd.

Any dvd author program will take the mpeg and make a dvd folder for you.

Check the tools section on the left.

[jmsrickland]

Thanks for your help. Isn't the ATI rather costly?

I agree with you about just getting a DVD standalone recorder and burning directly from VCR player to the DVD recorder and I will probably do that with alot of my movies that are ready to burn from VHS. I have though, quite a few old VHS movies, some from YV shows and others just old VHS classics that need some editing to them. I suppose still it might be simplier to just copy them also to the standalone DVD recorder and then use that DVD as input to editing programs on my PC and then burn another DVD once I have edited what I need to. Twenty five cents for a DVD-R disc times 200 (I have about that many VHS movies to edit) is $50.00 though. I would first burn them to a DVD-RW disc (no waste here), read it into my PC, edit them then re-burn them to a DVD-R disc. Easier for sure. About $50.00 to do so. But I was going to have to do that anyway.

I will also try one of those other programs that are not too expensive or free. Ulead is about $100 bucks and TMPGENC DVD AUTHOR about $90.00. Cheaper if I just spend $50 bucks on the 200 DVD-R disks.

[jmsrickland]

Just off the tract a bit, you know, it's too bad they don't make a PC DVD burner that has it's own video input that can be used to plug a VCR directly into and then record direct. They should make them I think. That way I would only have to buy one DVD burner for the PC and not another one for standalone.