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austeros · Mar 8, 2006, 01:10 PM

Greetings,

Friend of mine is looking for a way to take his old VHS tapes and put them on DVDs. Lucky for him, he is going to be getting a new iBook to help him on his task. But he needs something to change the VHS into mpeg video, or whatever format works with iMovie. Can anyone reccomend any products to do this?

For my PC, i have a Plextor Convertx DVR, which does the job, but it is rather expensive due to the additional DVR/divx features. I know there is a mac version, and other Mac-compatible PVR solutions, but they are rather expensive. Is there a cheaper solution available? I remember right when firewire came out, Sony made a coverter box, but that was 1998, and there has to be something better out there. Any recommendations would be appreciated.

tooki · Mar 8, 2006, 02:44 PM

Doing it via the computer is rather time-consuming. It's only worthwhile if you need to edit it. Otherwise, just go to the store and spend $300 on a combination VCR-DVD Recorder. With it, you can just press the Copy button and it'll play the tape and put it onto DVD in real-time.

tooki

robby818 · Mar 8, 2006, 05:48 PM

Tooki's advice is going to save you a lot of headaches, but you could also:

borrow a mini DV video camera that has analog pass through. Connect your VCR to the video camera by Composite video+Analog audio. (S video would yield a better picture but i have yet to see a vcr that has s video out) Then connect the camera to the Mac with firewire. Open imovie and press play on the vcr and it will send the signal to your Mac via the camera. Note- getting your video camera into pass through mode can be tricky so read the manual and not all DV cameras have true analog pass through even though they say they can do this. I've had good luck with sony DV cameras, but it has been awhile since i needed to do this.

Worst comes to worst you can also just copy the vcr tape to mini DV and then play the dv tape into the mac- just about all mini DV cameras can record an analog signal to tape. i've made a few DVDs by doing this and the quality is acceptable.

austeros · Mar 8, 2006, 09:47 PM

hmm. alright, I will pass along those options. Can anyone reccomend a good pvr? How about the ATI usb one?

tooki · Mar 8, 2006, 11:20 PM

Originally Posted by robby818

S video would yield a better picture but i have yet to see a vcr that has s video out

S-video comes from Super VHS (S-VHS). Only S-VHS (and Hi8) VCRs have it. A standard VHS VCR wouldn't benefit anyway, since the resolution of regular VHS tape is lower than the resolution of standard composite video.

tooki