I don’t own a digital video camera. However i do own a quasar video camcorder… The camera records on to those mini VHS tape thingys…
Is there some kind of hardware to hook up my camcorder to get the videos on PC so i can edit them and add music and stuff?
Or would i be required to buy a digital video camera if i plan to edit video?
thx for help
If your camera has RCA jacks, i.e. video and audio out, you can attach these to a video card (or alternatively a tv card) with a video input. If your camera doesn’t have these jacks, then you need a mini VHS player with the video out to hook up to your computer.
So essentially, you need a video card accepts a video signal from an external source.
The product you are looking for is called a Video Capture Device and there is quite a range of them. Best to speak to specialists about your particular needs I think, do you have any such stores in your area? Make sure you know your computer specs as some will need a pretty new machine.
You don’t need a mini VHS player - if what you mean is VHS-C. You can get an adapter (the size of a full VHS cassette) that lets you play VHS-C tapes in a normal VCR. If you mean some other cassette format, however, you can’t use this trick. The signal encoding will be different
You may still be able to use your VCR (or some other AV equipment) as an electronic signal converter, if you have one with, say s-video in, and a modulated video output.
Many modern TV capture cards (which let you record, as opposed to ‘tuner cards’ that only let you watch) have s-video inputs. That’s something to look out for, if your camera has s-video outputs. You’ll get better quality with s-video than modulated video.
(Why did they ever make ‘tuner only’ cards? My best guess is that they didn’t want to license decent recorder software, or wanted to get a product out the door and producing revenues before they could get all the bugs out of the hardware, firmware, drivers, etc. Or Maybe false product line differentiation)
Video Capture cards come both in digital and analogue format. You’re looking for Analogue. Look em up, there’s lots about, though analogue aren’t as common as they once were.
Thanks a bunch guys
Try ebay.com there are loads. You didn’t say what kind of computer you have so I dont know what to suggest. You also need a big HD cause usually ten minutes of video can eat up 1 gig of space.
Oh, i have a compaq (terrible! in know, not as bad as mac though… :P) Although within about 3 months I am probably getting a… well im getting a barebones kit and making a pc out of a p4 motherboard, i believe.
I have a not so great videocard. It is a nvidia tnt2 -m64 32 mb video card. It only has a SVGA monitor output.
However when i buy my barebones kit, I am prolly getting a decent 128 mb video card TV and DVI outs.
So would that pc and video card be sufficient?
Now i have a A/V hookup thing to hook up into the tv, but how do i hook it up to the pc exactly? I am kind of confused by the bombardment of new technology i havent heard of.
Thank you for all your help
I just got an ATI TV Wonder card from Best Buy last night. $30 after rebate. 'Course, I’m not looking to do video editing and the system I put it in has on-board AGP video with up to 64MB. If you’re looking to upgrade your current video and include A/V hoopups, you’d probably want an ATI All-in-Wonder. Circuit City lists the 64MB for $130 and the 128MB for $350.
a 64 mb ATI all-in-wonder contains TV input, TV tuner, TV out, and VGA monitor output ports.
A video card i am looking at perhaps getting if it is still such a good deal when i buy a video card, is an ATI radeon 9200 128 mb with VGA monitor output, TV/S-video output, and DVI output.
Is the All-in-wonders TV input port the port that is needed to transfer homevideos off mini VHS’s onto my pc? or would the decribed ATI radeon 9200 be competent to preform such tasks.
I am, more importantly, a gamer. So i dont need a medio-core video card for graphics.
Browsing through ATI’s offerings, I think their All-In-Wonder line is the only one with video capture capabilities. You are looking for the ‘S-Video in’ feature (other manufacturers may have a RCA jack rather than a S-Video plug). You can do a product camparison of ATI’s cards here .
It would seem that you are stuck with a tv tuner if you want to have video capture capabilities with you video card. I have a tv tuner card in my machine and I find the ability to record tv programs to be a useful feature.
You may also want to check out want Nvidia has to offer with their line of video cards.
Hmmm… ok.
I read up on tigerdirect.com about some hardware. There is this video capture device that has s-video and RCA inputs, plus RCA output, with the other end a USB port thing.
So… if i have a RCA jack on my tv and hook it up through this video capture device to my pc through the usb device, and have the videos playing on the tv, i could capture them on to my pc?
That is the impression i am under after reading up a lil about them and talking to my dad.
And another thing… the TV out, which is featured on many recent video cards these days; wouldnt that be Sending from the pc to the tv? since it is OUTput, rather than INput, and coming IN to the pc?
just something that i was thinkin…