Posted: 6/10/2005 4:25:55 PM EDT
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I need to 'save' some movies I have on 8mm and VHS. I'd like to make DVD's. I believe all I need is a way to port the video into my computer. I've been looking at the Dazzle 150 and I figure I'd run it past our panel of 'experts' to see what you all are using/recommend. thanks 
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IMHO Dazzle is lame. I'm very happy with the Hauppauge 250. It gives you a lot more options than the Dazzle. www.hauppauge.com/ For an alternative, I've got a friend how purchased a VCR to DVD table top unit. When he was telling me about it, I was thinking "LAME." Then when I listened to him, he explained that it also had a firewire in port so it would make digital copies from something like a Hi-8 camcorder. R. ETA - Aaargh. Beat me by 17 seconds. BTW, I've got the ATI card too. It's gives less options than the 250. I only use the ATI to watch TV on the PC. |
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I have and use an All-in-Wonder card. It works fine. I record Deadwood and convert two shows to DVD, with other programs. I have heard good things about the Dazzles. Plus you can move it from one PC to another. My ATI card supposedly doesn't have a hardware encoder built in but I know if it is necessary as it makes mpegs just fine. I recommend you also get some good video editing software, though the Dazzle may come with some. I use DVD Architect to make DVD's with menus and Studio to cleanup and edit the video once it is captured. For simply cutting some footage off, Windows Movie Maker 2(or higher?) works quite well. I do not spend much money on software, wink wink nudge nudge. ByteTheBullet (-: |
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I have done it several ways. You can use an All-in-Wonder as previously mentioned. I think Best Buy has an esternal version on sale right now. It has standard RCA type inputs for stereo audio and video, as well as cable TV input. If you want to spend extra $$$, I think someone sells a digital tuner card for PCs now. If you have digital cable, you can record DVD quality stuff off cable. My MiniDV camera has a firewire output, which dumps directly into my motherboard. I doubt your VCR or 8mm has firewire, so I'll skip that. I have a JVC VHS/HDD/DVD-RW on my entertainment center that I got at Ultimate Electronics. (they are going out of business, so things are on sale) You can copy from VHS directly to the DVD (assuming it isn't copy protected) When I burned a weddign DVD for a friend off his 8mm, I just used the All-In-Wonder. Easy, and probably the least expensive option. |
| I use an ATI TV wonder pro. It's a PCI card that fits in one of the spare PCI slots. It allows you to capture video. It's not very high-tech, but it gets the job done. It also allows you to watch tv on the computer. Price was $75ish - $20 rebate from Best Buy. MJD |
| Save yourself a lot of "core-war" headaches and buy a Sony VAIO. Video capture cards are some of the most tempermental pieces of hardware you can buy. Learn from my mistakes, please. I have built several digital video editing compters and unless you need something like AVID, go with a prepackaged deal that has already been tested bulletproof. |
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I own the dazzle 80. Don't know if I can recommend it. There software was pinnical and it was the worst for turning it into a dvd. Just the conversion time made me not want to use it. The problems I have run into, are quality of the video depends greatly on what format you need to save to. I built a computer just for this, and discovered the dazzle then was not up to the task. I am going back to my camera to convert. If I could have found an all in wonder as cheap as the dazzle, I would have gone that route. sorry might be rambleing. Basically, I am converting old 8mm without sound that got converted to vhs, to dvd. I have a 3.4ghz pentium 4, 1 gb of ram, and 200 gb of hd space just for the movies. If I try in Mpeg format, you can see the movies start to jerk where the 8mm gets choppy. So my only choice is to convert to avi which takes about 2 gb per 7 min of film. That takes about 24 hours to compress back into 4 gb for a dvd. I am using Ulead to edit and make the dvd. As an mpeg it only takes about 1 hr. Depends on what you can live with in quality. |