I am in need of some help. I am looking to create VCD's from some rare VHS tapes. I was going to hook my VCR up to my PC and then record the video onto my hard drive. I just purchased a Sony digital high 8 camcorder and I was told that to get the best quality that I need to hook my VCR up to the camcorder and record the video there.I would then need to hook the camcorder to my PC and capture it that wat through the S-Video plug. Is this the best way to do it? The VHS tape is in mint condition and is ion stereo but my VCR doesn't have s-video. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Cale

-- Cale Ferguson (5150@onramp.net), March 04, 2000

Answers

S-video is always the way to go but there are situations where it's doubtful whether or not it WILL provide perceptible improvement in the end product, in this case our VCD. Why not try for yourself and see? If I had your setup, I will first capture a five-minute segment on that VHS tape direct from the composite output of the VHS deck it's playing in. Then I will record the same segment onto Digital8, play back the D8 tape and capture using the camcorder's composite, then later, S-video outputs. Why stop here? If I had a vidcap card that had and supported DV-in/out (1394 connections) I will capture in the digital domain direct from the D8 tape using the DV connector on the camcorder. All in all I will have four files now and a decision can be made towards which provides the best quality in between them.

-- EMartinez (epmartinez@yahoo.com), March 05, 2000.

How are you hooking up the VCR to the camcorder? The quality of the end product can only be as good as the weakest link in your process. Your best bet would be to get a SVHS vcr and connect the VCR to the computer with S-Video, if this is out of the question your highest quality will still be gained going straight from the VCR to the computer. You may want to purchase an SVHS VCR from a store with a good return policy ;)

-- Trevor (trevor@storage.dyn.dhs.org), July 03, 2001.