Hi all.

Can anyone help me out with how I would go about converting a bunch of old videos into digital format (so I can put them on CD).

What stuff do I need? I have a video player... hah. I need a video capture card or some such, yes? Anything special features I need on one of these?

Is the quality good? I assume it would be as good as the quality of the video... but a friend was doing it once while I was there, and they had to 'tune' the video in to the tape and they couldn't do it very well... so it was all fuzzy.

Do I need cables for sound, too?

Is it a lengthy process converting stuff? :o

Well, the Video quality is not considered superior and thus there is really no way to improve quality.

I believe Snazzi has several products which should meet your needs. Look for one which has Composite connection and you could use the RCA-type cables to wire for video and sound.

Because you are transferring from analog tapes to digital format, there is no way of going accelerated speed extraction so a 180 minutes tape will take 180 minutes to transfer. Depending on the speed of your computer, it would have to go through the stage of compression and rendering. Be sure to have lots and lots of disk space and RAM would not hurt too.

Be prepared for a day of work for a tape.

Check out http://www.snazzi.com/newsite/pages/products/snazzi4.asp

Do the easy part... go to a good photo-shop (the kind that, among other things, develops photos), and ask if they convert videos. If they do, it will be easier and cheaper than buying your own equipment.

I agree with Reptilian Feline...I went to Target and they did a great job. They use: http://www.yesdvd.com

I also used a local media shop both did a good job. I also transfered all my home family movies on Super 8MM from the 60's and 70's into DVD best present I ever gave to my parents! Since super 8 is silent they added nice music in the background. It came out really nice.

I use a Radeon 8500 DV to convert any input to digital (and then burn it onto CD).

I would have to agree that a local shop might do it for a good price. If you would like to learn how to do it yourself so you may use this knowledge in the future, I would recommend the Pinnacle line of products. I have used their software along with a firewire board to connect to a digital 8 camcorder and I found it very easy to do. They also have external devices with RCA/composite connections to hook it up to a VCR and import video into the computer. I have only seen this done, but havent done it myself. Price range usually runs under $100

I just use a pinacle dv card to import to high res AVI and then transfer off to digibeta or beta sp

I got a DV camera and import through a Firewire PCMCIA card on my notebook and the image at DV is great. But image quality would be dependent on the input source. Video tapes generally do not provide great image quality and that would affect the output.

True, best to check with the local stores and see if their prices are attractive because all the hardware if you were to purchase for a few videos might outweigh the cost.

Originally posted by timechange
I use a Radeon 8500 DV to convert any input to digital (and then burn it onto CD).

Same here. Works well. But kind of dismayed that ATI discontinuted the 8500DV but still supports the AIW 7500, grrr!


Just did a fresh install of the new catalyst drivers (3.8 I believe) and re-installed mmc7.7 and it works great. Captured about half of the news last night just for the heck of it. :D