Assuming I start with a tape, a VCR, a Mac G4 and necessary patch cables.
A company called Dazzle makes something called a bridge, I use it to hook up my old videocamera to using RCA cables (the red, yellow, and white kind). I then use QuickTime (Full version) to record. Firewire is essential. So is processing power and RAM. Hopefully it’s a fairly new G4, I had problems with my G3 Blue and White with jumpy video, but my new G4 800 handles it flawlessly. A big firewire external drive and a dvd burner are on my wish list.
You can capture with many other apps, like Adobe Premiere or Final Cut Pro. Then you export to MPEG-1 format, or to MPEG-2 format (I-frame or IBP-frame), provided the app has the right codecs.
What NurseCarmen referred to as a “bridge” I’m assuming is an analog-to-Firewire breakout box of sorts. If your deck or cam is DV-compliant (i.e. has FireWire out), you can bypass all external devices and capture directly to the FireWire port on your G4.
- s.e.
Oops. Re-read OP. You’re wanting to capture from a VHS VCR (hence an analog device). You’ll need some kind of external device if you want to capture over the FireWire interface.
- s.e.
scott evil:
I’m not sure what you mean. My G4 has FireWire inputs. Does it not also have RCA cable inputs? Or does that even matter?
And I have a VCR, but it’s in a different room from my G4, so I was going to borrow a friend’s (portable, obviously) camcorder for the operation.
And I have a trial copy of Adobe Premiere.
Do I need any other hardware?
I’ve never seen a G4, or any other computer for that matter, with RCA inputs. The FireWire interface is digital, whereas a capture over RCA cables is analog. If you want to capture to the FireWire input from an analog device, you’re going to need an external device to digitize the analog output from the VCR or camcorder to DV-1394 (FireWire) format. You should ask some electronics store if they have a suitable solution.
If you have the money, and are planning on doing a lot of video editing on your G4, I’d suggest a Matrox RTMac card, which comes bundled with the full version of Adobe Premiere 6.0. (Shameless plug for the company I work for, and the manual I wrote on my own.) It comes with a breakout box to connect your analog output, which then goes directly to the card and can be captured in Premiere.
In any case, let me know how it goes.
- s.e.
You definitely need an analog-to-digital video converter (the bridge). This lets your G4 suck up the video from any analog source, whether it’s a VCR, Laserdisc player, or older camcorder.
If you don’t want to spend too much for video capture software, use iMovie. Dunno if it came free with your G4, but it’s relatively cheap, and a lot of fun to boot. 
And saving the results as MPEG-1 can be done with Quicktime Pro (Quicktime + $30 “Pro” software key).
So what is this bridge you’re talking about? And how expensive is it?
Yow, that’s pricy! Even on eBay they’re going for $200+.
What other uses can I put this thing to? Could I make money with it in any legal way?
Not unless you’ve some homeshot pornos on VHS you’d like to sell on VCD.
Or you could go into business converting people’s boring old home videos to boring old VCDs.
A slightly less expensive, but still nifty solution might be one of Eskape Labs devices. I don’t even work for them! http://www.eskapelabs.com/products.html
I just got MyVideo, and it’s pretty fun!
Thanks, levdrakon! That looks like just what I need!
Is this something I could use to burn DVD’s from as well?
Here’s what’s going on. I’m in a show next week which will be recorded on VHS. I’d like to take that tape and digitize it into MPEG so I can show it to people who can’t be there.
Then once it’s digitized, I’d like to burn it onto DVD, just because I like DVDs better than tapes and they’ll last longer as well.
I realize I’ll need a DVD burner, which I also don’t currently own.
Much as I hate to burst your bubble, I just consulted with the DVD expert at work, and it’s not as simple as just burning the MPEG file (which has to be MPEG-2 I-frame or IBP format to be DVD-compliant) to DVD. You need a DVD authoring application, such as Sonic Solutions DVDit. And when you capture, you’ll need to capture to MPEG-2 format which I’m not sure iMovie supports (Premiere doesn’t - you need a plug-in). If you import as a
I’m really sorry it’s so complicated… 
Email me if you need more info.
- s.e.
Go with Apple’s iDVD program – it’s available for cheap (or free), it’s easy to use, and it produces slick results. The latest version of iMovie will also have an option to export your footage in “iDVD format,” which is non-geek-speak for DVD-compatable MPEG-2.
You just export your movies from iMovie, drag them into iDVD, tweak the menus, then burn.
Go with VCD. Most DVD players play them, any computer with a cdrom drive can play them, and you can burn them with a regular cd writer on regular CDRs. www.vcdhelp.com
I beieve VCD is supported on more players then writeable DVDs are, and it will save you hundreds of dollars.
Ah, I forgot about iDVD (I’m not a Mac person anymore, although I wrote the [url="http://www.matrox.com/videoweb/products/enduser/rtmac.htm"Matrox RTMac manual). But yes, it has to be exported to MPEG-2 format. I don’t know if iMovie will let you export to both I-frame or IBP-frame, but it really doesn’t matter for this kind of project.
- s.e.
Damned missing ]. UGH. I was trying to subtlely yet shamelessly plug my company but now it’s blatant… :eek: Mod! Fix! Fast!
- s.e.