Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Hi all! We have been experiencing an issue on site where threads have been missing the latest postings. The platform host Vanilla are working on this issue. A workaround that has been used by some is to navigate back a page or two to re-sync the thread and this will then show latest posts. Thanks, Mike.

Firewire to S-VHS?

  • 08-06-2005 7:04pm
    #1
    lukin
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,075 ✭✭✭


    How can I transfer VHS tapes to a laptop through it's Firewire port?
    The VCR I am using has an S-Video out port but I don't have a camcorder.
    Can I connect it straight to the laptop using a cable of some sort? (one with S-Video out on one side and Firewire in on the other?)
    Do I have to have a camcorder to use the Firewire to transfer video, whether it is on VHS tape or from the camcorder itself?
    Thanks for any replies.


Comments

  • #2
    Michael Collins
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 1,851 Mod ✭✭✭✭Michael Collins


    No you can't just connect the cable straight from the VCR to the Laptop. One's digital and one's analogue, they just don't mix!

    What you need is either a camcorder that lets you input and record analogue video whereby you can then connect a Firewire cable from your camcorder to your laptop, or if you plan to do a lot of this kind of thing, something like this is very useful: http://www.simplydv.co.uk/advc100.html


  • #3
    Tenshot
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 648 ✭✭✭Tenshot


    Michael Collins wrote:
    What you need is either a camcorder that lets you input and record analogue video whereby you can then connect a Firewire cable from your camcorder to your laptop, or if you plan to do a lot of this kind of thing, something like this is very useful: http://www.simplydv.co.uk/advc100.html
    I picked up one of these a while ago - it works really, really well, both for capture and playback of analogue video sources.

    In particular, if you're capturing long sections of analogue VHS (e.g. a tape of more than 40-50 minutes), most camcorders will have significant audio drift by the end of the capture; the ADVC100 includes an audio synchronisation circuitry to take care of this.


  • #4
    lukin
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,075 ✭✭✭lukin


    Yeah, someone already suggested one of those analogue to digital video conversion boxes to me already, but too expensive I'm afraid.
    I am using a PCMCIA card that has an S-VHS input to capture VHS.
    The quality is probably not comparable to what it would be with firewire but it is good enough when I capture at a higher resolution.


  • #5
    Michael Collins
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 1,851 Mod ✭✭✭✭Michael Collins


    It was the same story with myself, I wanted to do the odd bit of analogue to digital conversion and I saw that device in action which actually works really well as Tenshot says, but it was just a bit too expensive for what I wanted. Although they do an educational discount at that site which is pretty reasonable, could be as high as 20% I think.

    In the end I went for something similar to yourself lurkin - A Hauppauge PVR 350. Excellent piece of hardware, but horribly outdated software. They could make it so more functional and more intuitive if they just improved that part of it.


Advertisement