what hardware do I need....

[WaxonWaxov]

What hardware do I need to bring in video/audio from my VCR?

I currently have a high-end (can't remember the model) NIVIDIA video card, but I don't think I have a way to input video feed.

Is there a card to buy to import RCA signal?

Is there an RCA to USB converter?

????

[BrianCee]

Yes to both questions - an analogue capture card will allow you to import directly to your PC and these are quite plentiful and usually have RCA connectors on the back - there are several variants of a RCA to USB connector on the market but there have been various problems reported by users such as poor quality capture and black and white only capture.

One of the best and cheapest ways to capture analogue is to use your DV camcorder as a Analogue to DV convertor (depends on the spec of your camera whether you can do this.) and capture your video to your PC via the firewire ports.

Alternatively the second best option is propably to buy a stand alone Analogue to DV converter (sometimes called a "Bridge") and use that to capture to your PC firewire port.

[jchunter]

I use ADS Instant DVD2 for capturing my analog camcorder tapes. It has RCA and S-Video inputs and will convert directly to mpeg2 without putting much load at all on your computer. USB2 connection to PC (CPU reads about 15% busy during capture at 8Mbps.) USB2 connection to PC.
John

[DVDDoug]

Some capture device manufacturers:

ATI Popular capture cards

Pinnicle Popular capture boxes & software

Hauppauge Capture cards & devices with hardware MPEG encoders.

NOTE: If you get a USB device, you need USB-2 port on your computer. USB-1 is not fast-enough for real-time video.

For more information see:
DigitalFAQ.com

VideoHelp.com

[GeorgeW]

I have the ADS Tech Instant DVD 2.0, and the ADS DVD Xpress -- both capture realtime high-quality mpeg-2 video+audio through a USB 2.0 port (up to 15mbps). They can capture using older USB 1.1 ports, but you will be limited to ~5mbps captures.

For those wanting to do dv-to-dvd encoding, and if you have a dv camcorder that has dv-to-analog passthrough:

edit your dv .avi video on your computer. now export it to your dv camcorder via firewire. feed the analog signal out of your dv camcorder to the Instant DVD 2.0, and capture the mpeg-2 realtime encoding stream back to the same computer that is doing the dv export

dv-to-dvd in realtime -- with basic realtime color corrections when using CapWiz to do the capture...