[zuggly]

I have VHS tapes I would like to capture to my imac.

Will the "Belkin usbvideo bus" work, or what exactly
do I need to get my VCR hooked up?

[memento]

That depends on the quality you want. I don't think USB has the bandwidth for very good quality.

My setup is my VCR's RCA output to a sony DVMC-DA2 analog/firewire converter. The converter connects to the computer via firewire and iMovie will record for you. you can then export from DV format to anything QT supports (sorenson, 3ivx). If you have Toast Titanium, you can use it to export to VCD mpeg, which is what I do.

[zuggly]

So how much does that firewire capture device cost?

THANK YOU for your help!

[memento]

I don't remember exactly. There's also the Dazzle Hollywood DV bridge. It's essentially the same thing. They both go for about $300, I think. do a search for them. DV quality is unbeatable. If you're willing to live with less, the USB devices out there probably cost less.

[GreenMnM]

USB is definately not good for video. Now, your VHS video tapes will not be all that great of quality anyway, but you wiould probably want the best quality you can get out of them.

The Sony Digital Media converter lists for about $399, but if you look around you can find one for around $300 (I got one for $324 including shipping). They are really nice and Sony makes a good device. It does have some limitations though, mainly it will not import a PAL signal (the European standard video format, the US uses "NTSC").

There are now at least two other options. Dazzle makes a $299 media converter. And Formac makes another. The Formac Studio device even has a TV tuner built in, but it lists for $429. You can special order a PAL Formac Studio device, and I read somewhere (though it seems to have disappeared) that the Dazzle device will do NTSC and PAL.

Dazzle Hollywood DV-Bridge
Formac Studio

You would also need to use some kind of 3rd party video editing software for a USB video converter (something would probably come with your USB device) as both iMovie and Final Cut Pro are FireWire only.

I love my Sony DMC. I have converted about 100 episodes of Seinfeld from video tape to VCD and edited all the commercials out using iMovie and Toast 5!

-Doug

[ 08-08-2001: Message edited by: GreenMnM ]

[Tee]

I have converted about 100 episodes of Seinfeld from video tape to VCD and edited all the commercials out

Wow! How large was each episodes source file before compression?

Did you capture an entire episode at a time?

I've got OS8.6 so I guess I'd have to do 2GB pieces...

[buchrob]

Dazzle Hollywood DV bridge does an excellent job with any kind of analog input and iMovie and iMovie 2 (OS-X), but requires a Firewire connection,

Ran into some frame rate problems with Final Cut Pro, but that is probably because, being positioned as a "professional" product, it's less forgiving of errors that a casual home video editor would accept or not really notice.

USB = U Should Be looking at something else for bigger datastreams.