XP said:
Using Bellsouth DSL and a Presario PC with AMD CPU and 1024 RAM.
I need to buy 2 items. No TV involved. A Video Card. The Video card does
not need to capture the Video to burn it to digital format to the hard
drive.
Key words: play a vcr tape
1. Video Capture card or any VIdeo card, which will allow the connection
from a VCR to play a Video tape on the PC's monitor.
2. VCR with video cables to connect to a Video Card or Video Capture card
to play a Video tape on the PC's monitor.
No TV involved. Key words: play a vcr tape
Thank you from New Orleans
------------------------------------------
| |
Svideo cable | Display on | Computer
VCR -------------------- Video_Capture Computer Screen |----Monitor
| Card via Graphics Card |
| |
-------------------------------------------
There is a picture of a capture card here. Note that in many cases,
they do include a TV tuner, but you don't have to use it.
http://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/productimage/15-276-002-07.jpg
The connectors, from top to bottom:
1) TV in port - This takes a 75 ohm cable. If I want to use a "rabbit
ears" antenna, I take the antenna and a "balun", and the balun
(a small transformer), converts the 300 ohm rabbit ears antenna,
to 75 ohms to drive the 75 ohm port on the TV in port. Example
of a balun here. Cable TV would plug in directly.
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062054
2) Composite In - This is another 75 ohm input, and can come from the
video output of the VCR. My VCR only has this the Composite signal. You
use a 75 ohm cable, with an RCA plug on the end.
Since the Composite In does not have audio content, the pink Audio In
below the Composite, is where you connect the audio. On my VCR and mixer,
my audio comes out on a couple RCA jacks. I need a stereo cable from
Radio Shack, that converts two RCA audio jacks, to a male 1/8" plug.
This would be an example of how to go from RCA audio to a 1/8" plug:
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103225
3) S-Video In - The connector is called DIN and there are many versions.
The cable you plug into this, would have DIN with four pins on it.
The signals are Luminance, Chrominance, GND, GND. S-Video is a better
quality signal, since the device receiving the signal no longer has
to split the original signal into two parts. If the VCR has S-Video
output, you'll need a DIN to DIN cable, to connect to the video capture
card.
4) Audio Out - As far as I know, the Audio Out is only operational
if using the TV tuner on the card, or the FM radio option on the
card. This will be a Line Level signal and you can connect it to
the Line In on your sound card if you want.
There are many capture devices. Newegg has reviews. The cheapest cards
are good for video capture, but the software is sadly lacking. There
are other more expensive products. The software is what makes the difference,
so read the reviews.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010380047&Subcategory=47
Some cards use the DIN connector for more than one interface. For example, in
this picture, you can see an adapter cable that goes to the DIN socket, with
many wires on it. The DIN in this case, could have 7 or 9 pins on it. If
a product like this has a downloadable manual, it would probably pay to
read the manual first, to decide whether it does what you want.
http://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/productimage/15-122-007-06.jpg
I get the impression, that bad software experiences with products
like those, is quite common. I bought a Hauppauge WinTV card years
ago, and didn't really have trouble with getting the software to
run. But the results weren't really that good. The only really clean
picture I ever got, was playing a commercial video tape, through my
VCR and then to the Hauppauge card. I've also connected a video camera
that has 75 ohm output (a surveillance camera) to the thing, and it
worked clean as well.
Some more fun info here, in case you run into problems in the future.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macrovision
Paul
