Capturing from a VHS player?

[Balliol]

I am a technical novive and I have bought a copy of Pinnacle Studio Titanium Edition Plus because I want to transfer film from VHS tapes to DVDs and editi them on the way using my computer. I am now told that I need to use the ATI facility on my computer to capture the film from my VHS player but I can not work out how. Can someone point me in the right direction?

[jameshgross]

I think we need a little more info.
What model ATI?
Do you have a capture card?
What are the outputs available from the VHS player?
Any other info would be appreciated

Also do a search on this site there must be dozens of threads on this subject

[Balliol]

Looking at the invoice it appears that I have a128MB ATI Radeon 9800Pro (all in wonder) what ever that is.
As for the capture card I have a set of cables connected to a scart converter connected to the VHS player which runs into a four socket device with a cable that runs to the video card or what ever it’s called at the back of my computer and I thought that’s all that was needed.

[lordsmurf]

www.digitalFAQ.com has some information on capturing with ATI cards.

[Balliol]

I've managed to get the VHS player to play the tape on my computer and while it did so the sound worked.
When I attempted to play the file on the computer the visual was there but no sound.

[IKnowNothing]

You probably need to set the input source correctly.

Double click on the speaker in the system tray (by the clock) and then select options off the menu bbar and properties off the menu.

Now click the radio button for recording
and click OK
The display should change to show input rather than playback volume controls

Now you need to make sure the TV card is selected and has a sensible volume.
You might need to repeat this a number of times untilyou get the right input and volume selection.

Hope this helps

[Balliol]

Sorry but thick as I am I can not find the speaker in the system tray. I can see a speaker in my control panel but thats it and I certainly can't find options so could you please point me in the right direction.

[saturndude]

A few questions:

Do you have sound on the motherboard or a separate sound card? Do you have speakers hooked up and all drivers installed? I'm sorry, between the Windows Control Panel and the motherboard sound software, getting sound working has not become easier in the last dozen years. I speak from experience. Don't give up hope however.

I've got an AIW 9200. Here are some things I noticed and learned the hard way:

1. My card uses "WDM" (Windows Driver Model), not "Video for Windows" drivers. If the first thing that you install is the .exe file that has "wdm" in the name, Windows (I've tried 98 and XP so far) will recognize the card's resources right away and the rest of the install will go much smoother.

2. In order to install the "wdm" file first, download later versions of the software (WDM, display driver, MMC) from ATI's website. The install routine on the CD that came with the card might not install the WDM file first. This fixes that. (Some say the absolute latest versions cause many crashes, so beware.)

3. Select "use the Theater chip" when you install the software for the first time. Strangely, the 5.5-inch by 8.5-inch booklet (48 pages) that I received does not mention this. IIRC, unless you do this, NONE of your presets will allow you to use the hardware chip.

4. Lordsmurf has some good resources, we owe him a debt of gratitude. Personally, I'm using 704 by 480 and 720 by 480, "MPEG-2 DVD", 6.49 to 8.01 MBit (variable bit rate) and checking "record cropped video" or "crop video" in two different places to remove the "overscan area". Both places must be checked.

5. Record something off the air on a spare tape for practice instead of wearing out your prized tapes. Soap operas have slow movement, they might be a great way to try out "video soap". And, BTW, even an amplified antenna may do a pretty poor job on live TV. Turning the ATI tuner to Channel 3 and using the VCR's tuner improves things slightly. Taping stuff live off the air will be hard unless your cable TV supplier gives you regular "free" TV signals as a courtesy.


After the card renders MPEG footage, Pinnacle will let you cut out commercials and stuff, create chapter menus and so much more. Have fun watching those old tapes once again!

[thecoalman]

I'll try and simplify this for you, the first thing to understand is your AIW doesn't process sound, it passes it onto the soundcard. It's connected externally with a cord going from the AIW to one of the jacks on your soundcard or internally with a small wire, usually either the microphone jack or the auxillary jack.

For either of these jacks to work they have to be enabled in your soundcard configuration, if you can hear sound from your computer speakers when you play the VHS tapes then whatever jack the AIW is plugged into is enabled. No need for any further configuration in the soundcard unless you need to do some tweaking such as increasing the volume recording level... (leave that for another post :P ).

MMC or whatever capture program you are using needs to know what jack you have plugged the AIW into. Open up the configuretion panel in MMC or your capture program and set the audio input to whatever jack you have plugged the AIW into, if it's the microphone select microphone, if it's the aux then select aux....

[Balliol]

Right, I've cracked it by finding that the "Mute" button on the ATI function display was switched off most likely by me. Yet another lesson learnt in how not to panic. Now all I have to do is to learn how to use the Pinnacle editing software.