How to record VCR to DVD??????

[Optimummind]

Hi,

I've never used any PVR (personal video recording) hardware and software before. I want to try it now because there is an awesome drama I have on VHS tape that I want to transfer to DVDs.

So, I went searching and decided that a HAUPPAUGE WINTV PVR 250 TV TUNER PCI CARD would do the job. On the TV tuner card itself, I see it has many connections like:

(1) Coaxial Connector - Input only
Used for cable television and satellite boxes with Microsoft Windows XP Media Center only.

(2) S-Video Connector - Input only
Used for cable television and satellite boxes with Windows XP Media Center only.

(3) Composite Video - Input only

(4) Left Audio Channel Jack - Input only

(5) Right Audio Channel Jack - Input only

What I'm wondering is, if I want to put my VHS tape in the VCR and want to record it, how would I make the necessary connections?

My VCR has the video, left audio, and right audio ports in the back. Would I, then, connect these 3 cables from the back of my VCR to the correspondings slots on the TV tuner card? Would this mean that I don't have to connect my TV to the tuner card??

Or, do I have to connect the video cable from VCR to TV tuner card but connect the left and right audio from VCR to my onboard sound card??

The TV card comes with DVD authoring software that will detect/auto scan for signal sources and output the display on my monitor.

Can anyone explain to me how this will work??

 

[pcchen]

Actually the most simple (but also expensive) way is to buy a DVD-Recorder.

Back to the TV Tuner card. Yes, all you have to do is connect your VCR to the TV card. You don't need to connect your TV to the card. By the way, use S-Video if your VCR has it. It has better quality.

Now use the program came with your TV card. Select the video input to composite or S-video (depends on how you connect your VCR). Use it to record from the VCR. Some programs can directly compress into MPEG-2. However, if you want best quality, you should use off-line MPEG-2 encoder.

Normally I record video into motion JPEG. If you have enough harddisk space, you can use HuffYUV. However, in 720x480 30 fps HuffYUV consumes about 10MB per second. That means you'll need about 35GB for one hour of video.

To encode MPEG-2 I normally use Cinema Craft Encoder. Its Basic version is not expensive. However, if you don't want to spend money on this, you can use the trial version of TMPEGEnc.