I have your typical Panasonic VHS-C hand held camcorder.  Really enjoy the camcorder, but for now, I copy the smaller VHS-C tapes onto a full size VHS tape.  I'm afraid over time, the quality of the tapes will degrade.

Is it possible to "burn" these tapes onto a CD somehow?  Thanks for any help.

vmax84

Yes, it is possible.  One can get about an hour of good quality video onto a 700MB CD.

However, to do this, you need to invest a fair deal of time and money.  One needs to purchase a video capture card for your PC, and perhaps some capture software, which might run a a couple hundred bucks, depending on the features you want.  The time comes in in both the time it takes to learn the ins & outs of the capture/editing process, and the time it takes to actually capture & compress the video.

Personally, I have a ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon, which is a combination 3D Video card and capture card.  However, if you have a video card that you'd like to keep, you can buy a separate card, or a USB capture device.  I've never used one of these things, so your mileage may vary.  

As for software, the cheapest is VirtualDub, which is freeware.  However, it isn't user friendly, and has a steep learning curve.  Couple this with the DivX codec (free, but buggy, and with questionable legality) and you should be all set.  With a recent computer, you should be able to capture & compress in real-time with VirtualDub & DivX, with minimal frame-drop.

Short answer:  It is possible, but takes some money & a lot of know-how.  If the video isn't private in nature, you may be able to get a local computer geek to do it for you.

Thanks for all the good info.  I don't know how long these tapes will last, so hopefully will be able to come up with something so I can convert them over to CD.  

Sounds like a person needs to do a little homework before diving into this.  

Thanks very much.

vmax84

For the past few years I've been using a Hauppauge (sp?) WinTV tuner card to copy my camcorder tapes into MPEG files that I then burn to CD.  It works great and didn't cost all that much.  I think I paid $150 for mine back when I bought it and it works great.

[url]www.hardforums.com[/url] and [url]www.arstechnica.com[/url] both have forums for discussing computer audio and video.  If you search through their archives or post questions you should get some good answers.

[url]www.pricewatch.com[/url] should have the cards listed so you can find a good deal on one.

I have a couple questions for you:
What software are you using to capture?  The same software that came with it?  

What sort of resolution are you encoding your video at?

Are you saving the files as AVI and then converting to MPG or are you capturing directly to MPG?

I have the Hauppauge card but haven't used their software much.  

ken_mays,

I think I'm using the software that came with it.  I know I also have some other software that I installed around that time but I don't think I'm using that.

I don't remember what resolution, but the files are pretty huge and I'm not giving up anything in the clarity department.

The software I'm using takes it straight to MPG.

I beleive panasonic just came out with a stand alone system you can intigrate into the home entertainment system that does this without a computer. Both tapes and DVD in the same deck for easy copying. Blank DVDs go for $10 and up depending if they are re-writeable and what size they are. Hope this helps.
BrenLover

[url]www.vcdhelp.com[/url] is a great place to start.  I have used my TV card to capture VHS with good results.  You just need to let your PC encode the video which can take awhile.  You also need alot of hard drive space if your PC can't do real-time compression.  check out vcdhelps caputre section   [url]http://www.vcdhelp.com/capture.htm[/url]
(sorry the link is not hot)

[made the link hot - Paul]

You guys are beautiful!!  Thanks for the info.

vmax84