Just getting started

[Guy]

I want to transfer all my home movies on vhs tapes to dvd. What I need to know is what do I need? What cables do I need to connect my camcorder to my computer? I have version 6 of video studio. Any help before I get started would be great. Thanks.

[GuyL]

You will need a video capture card to capture the video from your VHS tapes to your computer. From there, you can use Video Studio to edit the video as required then burn videos to DVD. I'm not sure if version 6 incluces the DVD burning features. If not, you may want to upgrade to a newer version.

[rwindeyer]

Or another option: if you are fortunate enough to dave a digital camcorder that has a pass-through facility (it will have something like AV/DV OUT in the menu selection) you can just use that. Plug the input from the VCR into the camera (remove tape from the camera while doing this), the camera digitises the signal on the fly, and get a firewire cable to stream the signal to the computer.

[GeorgeW]

The camcorder pass-thru would work, but you need a camcorder with that functionality, and you also need a firewire port on your computer along with enough hard drive space for dv .avi's (~13gb per hour).

Do you plan to do much editing, or is it strictly a transfer from VHS to DVD? If it's a straight transfer, then you could also consider a standalone DVD recorder (I've seen them drop to about $125 now including firewire input, and component output). Not only can you do the transfer, if you get one with a tuner, it will replace your VCR going forward

George