looking for tips on vhs to dvd, what am I missing?

[luckybob]

hello from denver! Hopefully i've come to the right place. Like so many other people my parents recorded a LOT of footage on tapes that I would very much like to save. Long story short, I've rounded up every vhs tape I could find in the house that wasn't obviously a movie and I want to save everything possible. I have about 100 tapes now, about 3/4 of which are VHS-C. This project has been on the back burner for me for a couple years. My goal is to save anything I can, as best as I can. Once I get it into the computer I have all the time in the world (relatively). I can convert to dvd, stream it to family, bla bla bla. I would not consider myself a novice when it comes to AV and computer equipment. I went to school for Electrical engineering, but I do know when i'm in over my head and when to seek advice. That said, i guess I should list the equipment I have and take notes as to what I need to get or replace. I've tried to include links to pictures where possible.

1: two (yes two) Panasonic AG-7650 s-vhs players http://www.oldvcr.tv/collection/index.html?Mode=View&Brand=Panasonic&Model=AG-7650
2: walmart special s-video cable
3: ATI theatre 550 pro (pcie) http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-media/product-gallery/B000L1X8ZC
4: USB creative X-FI (please give me an excuse to buy a new card. ^.^)
5: recording computer will be windows 7 x64. (dual xeon cpu) aka, overkill

Questions:
1. Should I keep the AG-7650, or sell it and use something else?
1a. if I keep it, what is the best way to connect audio? audio out is a series of XLR connections.
1b. there are 3 connections for "remote". db-9,db-16, and 34 ? Are they useful for anything in my situation?

2. Good quality cables. I'm a firm believer in the "bell curve" on price to quality. I ran my house in quad-shield coax, but you arent going to sell me on "oxygen free" or any of that tripe. Suggestions?

3. I'm not a fan of this card. It seems to work fine. I would be willing to invest a bit here, I work with vintage computers, I would like to record retro-gaming/vintage hardware and post it on youtube eventually. Any suggestions?

4. I've been using this mostly because I got it for a good price and I haven't had a reason to upgrade. I would like an excuse to get a hi-fi sound card like the asus xonar. Can you give me one?

[Steve(MS)]

A lot depends on how much you want to spend on this project and the how much time you want to put into it.
Then finding the ratio of how good you want the quality or how anal one wants to be about digitizing vhs.
There is the full blown approach or the "good enough" approach.

There are very knowledgeable folk here that definitely can guide you better than I...so I will step aside.
Yet there is a website devoted to this sort of thing here: http://www.digitalfaq.com/guides/video.htm
And the forum: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/

[luckybob]

in for a penny, in for a pound. As the saying goes. I figure having the "pro" video players will probably be the vast majority of the cost anyway.

[johns0]

luckybob-in the future please use a more descriptive subject title in your posts to allow others to search for similar topics. I will change yours this time.

[sanlyn]

....
1: two (yes two) Panasonic AG-7650 s-vhs players http://www.oldvcr.tv/collection/index.html?Mode=View&Brand=Panasonic&Model=AG-7650

Keep both.

2: walmart special s-video cable

? Alas, I'm not familiar with which of Walmart's "specials" is the special you have. Actually the best one they have is an OK cable that's better than their others and is less than 6 bucks ( http://www.walmart.com/ip/GE-S-Video-Cable/16561344 ). There's a school of thought that says all wire looks and sounds alike. These people do not lie: to them, all wire really does look and sound alike. If you are a subscriber to this school, change nothing. Otherwise: BJC YC-2 . As an engineer you know that OFC wire has no special advantage, that stranded-core is inferior for a/v use, silver plating is a no-no, and gold is a poor conductor but essential for marketing purposes. I am of the allegedly weirdo school maintaining that all wire/wrapping/connector designs have unique qualities; none will "improve" the original signal but some are less destructive than others -- having tried all of them from Monster (cleverly packaged industrial waste) in each direction up and down from $0.45 (free shipping, with additional purchase over $25) to $230.00 ($8+ shipping, each, and 17 days). Otherwise if you belong to the former school, or If working with uncalibrated monitors, this discussion is moot.

3: ATI theatre 550 pro (pcie) http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-media/product-gallery/B000L1X8ZC

Can't say, as some implementations reportedly vary. If you're pleased, stay put. I hear that the best for your purpose are the old AllInWonder analog lines, but good luck finding one and an AGP-equipped motherboard. You can look into Black Magic Intensity stuff, but even they have their limitations.

4: USB creative X-FI (please give me an excuse to buy a new card. ^.^)

No experience with this. I and others have used plain-vanilla Creative Audigy for years. ASUS cards vary, so check user reviews. There are no perfect PC audio cards but lots of duds. If you really want to hear what's ghoing on inside those little buggers, get a pair of Grado SR-80i headphones.

There are $500 PC sound cards out there. Your move.

5: recording computer will be windows 7 x64. (dual xeon cpu) aka, overkill

Perhaps, but if you had an ancient Celeron P3 you'd be in trouble.

There are lots of connector adapters available for your VCR. Monoprice.com is one source. As far as I can tell, the single-piece adapters themselves have few critics. It's the adapter-with-6foot-cable-attached that can lower performance. You probably know that all such adapters introduce noise and impedance factors, but I haven't seen any complaints. It beats no connection at all.

[luckybob]

Thanks steve for that link! Seems that site is more "specialized" toward what I am doing. I'm defiantly going to poke my head in on a permanent basis.

also, Thanks for the link to monoprice. I dare say the prices are so low it makes me wonder if in reality the people steal the stuff from stores and use the website as a fence.

Thanks for the info on the all-in-wonders! I have MANY agp boards. In fact, I just "retired" my dual 2800+ amd for a dual quad core xeon in my garage (what I'm recording on). My grand design wanted to put everything into one basket, but as the song goes; "you can't always get what you want".

[sanlyn]

The problem with the AllInWondedrs is finding one that still works and comes with its connecting cables. Many people bought the AIW's but never used them for capture or tv viewing, often just for gaming, and never kept the cables -- at the time, the high-RAM versions were fast cards. Their drivers are for XP. My two 2001 and 2004 AIW's still work (and with HD monitors, too). While their recording software was OK in its time, most people use them for analog captures to lossless AVI with VirtualDub capture. People who still use working models are reluctant to get rid of them. Also, be aware that they come as incompatible NTSC or PAL versions.