How to get the best quality picture during record for later burning to dvd

  • Thread starter Thread starter Andrew Hendrickson
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A

Andrew Hendrickson

I have the hp xp media center (2003) pc. I now know that to record from my
digital camcorder (which only has rca/s-video outputs) I need to change the
media center software to look for the s-video.

Is the media center best quality as good as I can get or should I use the tv
video card I have on a pc running 98SE?

Or should I just find a cheap digital camcorder/player that will play my
stack of tapes that has a firewire connection and use that to dump off all
of my old video onto the computer so that I can burn them to dvd?

Thanks
Andy H.
 
The old adage still applies... garbage in, garbage out. If the original
material is recorded on a VHS tape in LP, it's going to look pretty horrible
when viewed on a DVD. You can't (easily or cheaply) increase resolution.
You can lose it easily and go from DVD to VHS!

If the original data (call it that for want of a better term) is on VHS,
rather than SP on a SVHS tape, then inporting/capturing via composite cables
will be just fine. You should not lose any more
definition/resolution/quality.

If the original data is on SVHS tape, then import/capture via S-Video (for
video signal and line in for audio)...

If the original data is on digital video (eg MiniDV or D-VHS) then
import/capture via firewire.

If my PC is 'misbehaving' (not a usual occurance, but it has been known!)
and won't capture via composite cable, I transfer from an SVHS VCR via
S-Video cable to my digital camcorder and then via firewire from the
camcorder to the PC. Takes twice as long (obviously) but saves my sanity.
But then I do have an S-VHS VCR. If you've only got a 'normal' VCR, then
how are you going to connect your S-Video cable to the VCR?

Cari
www.coribright.com
 
Cari,

Yes, I know that old adage. I do have some old vhs of the kids but
these are not what I am wanting to dump to dvd (yet). I have a JVC
digital camcorder (GR-DVF10) an old model that when I bought it I did
not know enough to check if it had a firewire port. It records digital
onto minidv tapes. The camcorder has a proprietory output JLIP, and
standard RCA and S-video jacks. I am trying to find the best way to
pull the video off these tapes. The media center (HP) includes a video
card but it can only be accessed by the media center software, which
doesn't give me a whole lot of options to record the data.

On another computer I have a winTV pvr 250 card that can pull the video
off at different rates and qualities, but I pulled some samples off at
the highest quality (I think) and it had some distortion lines in it.

I have been told that with the media center pc I need to connect the
camera via a firewire port and then I will be able to use any software
to pull the video from the camera.

Is there a player that will play the tapes with a firewire port? Or
should I look into a different video card?

Do you know anything about the wintv pvr 250 video card and how best to
pull the video off of the tapes using it?

Thanks for any help you can give me.

Andy H
 
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