Trying to convert a video on a camcorder to DivX...NEWBIE

[Darkwing]

I'm totally new to this so i would appreciate if sumone helps me!
I'm trying to convert a video from a Sharp (VL-E630) Viewcam to any format on the computer...(Preferably DIVX)
i know i need a TV card but whats a capture card?

How does it work? Do i need to connect the camcorder to a VCR and then connect the VCR to the TV card?

Thanks.

[KingJohn]

The output of your Sharp has to connect to the input of the capture card, usually 2 plugs one for video and 1 for audio, so now you need to know what your Sharp puts out and then choose a capture card that has that input. Sounds like the Sharp has Video out and audio out, so most capture cards have those for input.

Take a look at some
http://www.hauppauge.com/html/selector.htm

[Darkwing]

hi thanks for the list of capture cards

would it be okay if i use this one?
http://www.hauppauge.com/html/usb_data.htm

what program would i need to convert to DivX?
thank you.

[KingJohn]

Hi, not seen that one before yes it has everything you want, it is the basic model, but will capture to AVI (Not Mpeg) but since you want the final output as DivX, there is no reason it wont capture direct to DivX

It will depend on your system whether it will capture to AVI or DivX AVI

Once you have the AVI, it would be very easy to compress it to once of the popular DivX codec's.

You would need the Nimo codec pack to provide you with a wide choice of codec's to experiment with.

And you would need an editing program to convert the AVI's to DivX AVI, the best is Virtual Dub (vdub)

You could even convert them to mpeg 1 for VCD with TMPGEnc