VCR Copying

[Richard]

I am totally ignorant on this matter.Does anyone know how to hook up a VCR to your computer and what(if any)software one would use to rip videotape content to save to hard disk?Any reply would be welcome.

[njcurveball]

This article probably does a better job of explaining it than I would.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,116463-page,1/article.html

[46zilzal]

I am totally ignorant on this matter.Does anyone know how to hook up a VCR to your computer and what(if any)software one would use to rip videotape content to save to hard disk?Any reply would be welcome.
You have to change formats for a direct copy. Apples Oranges

Also Magnaguard copyguard (on the source) requires an over-ride program between or the copy will shift colors and flip.

[DJofSD]

Seems the topic has been covered before -- but perhaps I'm remembering the wrong board.

You need an analog to digital converter - A/D converter. Video, left and right sound coming out of the VCR is analog. Feed that into the A/D convertor and the output of the A/D goes into either a FireWire port or a USB -- it depends upon what you buy.

After you get the video digitized on your PC you'll likely want to both edit it and to burn it to a DVD. This is a whole adventure unto itself.

You can get A/D boxes for $100 on up. And, you get what you pay for. I've used a few different brands and for using them to dub VHS tapes they all pretty much give you the same results.

If you going to copy videos from a camcorder that gives you a slightly different path to follow depending upon if your camcorder can digitize older tapes for you. I'm thinking of Sony camcorders that can read older HI-8 tapes and produce a signal that can go directly to your PC w/o an A/D.

There are plenty of places on the internet to learn more about both the H/W and the S/W.