M
MS
I recently decided that rather than keep accumulating more VHS tapes, that
now when I wanted to record something from TV, I would do it to my computer.
From there I can keep programs stored on a large external hard drive, can
burn the programs to VCD. (I don't currently have a DVD-burner, may add that
in the future), and can also compress them to a format to watch on my Pocket
PC.
I purchased a USB analog video capture card (my computer is a notebook,
running Windows XP), and a large (180 GB) external firewire hard drive. I
have various software that can be used to capture video, including some that
came with various devices, including the video capture device, some
shareware and freeware, and Windows Moviemaker.
So---if I'm home when the program starts that I want to record, I can do
that. Most of these programs have timers that will automatically stop
recording after a specified period of time, two hours or whatever. So, I can
set the timer for how long the program is, start recording when the program
starts, and it will stop recording automatically.
The feature I haven't seen is--a timer to start the recording at a
particular clock time. Last night I wanted to record a television program
that began at 9 PM. I wasn't going to be home at that time, however. So, I
wanted to set a timer that would begin the video capture automatically at 9
PM. I opened every single program I had that could capture video, including
Windows Moviemaker, MovieStar, Movie Shop, Cyberlink Power Director Pro, DVD
Complete, Arcsoft VideoImpression, Virtualdub, and others. In all of them I
searched for a way to set a timer to start capturing at a particular time. I
searched the menus, the capture dialog boxes, and the help files as well. I
couldn't find that capability in any of them.
That surprised me, as it seems a pretty basic feature in a program that
captures video, that a person might want to capture a television program
when one is not at home, as one does with a VCR, that there would be a timer
to specify at which clock time to begin recording. Very surprised not to
find that feature in any program.
Did I miss something? Is there a way to do that with those programs (or some
of them)? Are there any other video capture programs that do have such a
start timer capability?
(In case anyone is interested, I really wanted to record that program, so I
found an empty VHS tape, and recorded it the old way, with the VCR. If I
want to I could now capture the VHS tape to digital format. However, for
that desired result, it would be much simpler, quicker, and probably create
better quality results, to capture directly from the program to the digital
format.)
If anyone could help with a suggestion for how to do this, I would
appreciate it. Thank you.
now when I wanted to record something from TV, I would do it to my computer.
From there I can keep programs stored on a large external hard drive, can
burn the programs to VCD. (I don't currently have a DVD-burner, may add that
in the future), and can also compress them to a format to watch on my Pocket
PC.
I purchased a USB analog video capture card (my computer is a notebook,
running Windows XP), and a large (180 GB) external firewire hard drive. I
have various software that can be used to capture video, including some that
came with various devices, including the video capture device, some
shareware and freeware, and Windows Moviemaker.
So---if I'm home when the program starts that I want to record, I can do
that. Most of these programs have timers that will automatically stop
recording after a specified period of time, two hours or whatever. So, I can
set the timer for how long the program is, start recording when the program
starts, and it will stop recording automatically.
The feature I haven't seen is--a timer to start the recording at a
particular clock time. Last night I wanted to record a television program
that began at 9 PM. I wasn't going to be home at that time, however. So, I
wanted to set a timer that would begin the video capture automatically at 9
PM. I opened every single program I had that could capture video, including
Windows Moviemaker, MovieStar, Movie Shop, Cyberlink Power Director Pro, DVD
Complete, Arcsoft VideoImpression, Virtualdub, and others. In all of them I
searched for a way to set a timer to start capturing at a particular time. I
searched the menus, the capture dialog boxes, and the help files as well. I
couldn't find that capability in any of them.
That surprised me, as it seems a pretty basic feature in a program that
captures video, that a person might want to capture a television program
when one is not at home, as one does with a VCR, that there would be a timer
to specify at which clock time to begin recording. Very surprised not to
find that feature in any program.
Did I miss something? Is there a way to do that with those programs (or some
of them)? Are there any other video capture programs that do have such a
start timer capability?
(In case anyone is interested, I really wanted to record that program, so I
found an empty VHS tape, and recorded it the old way, with the VCR. If I
want to I could now capture the VHS tape to digital format. However, for
that desired result, it would be much simpler, quicker, and probably create
better quality results, to capture directly from the program to the digital
format.)
If anyone could help with a suggestion for how to do this, I would
appreciate it. Thank you.
ROGRA~1WinTVWinTV2K.EXE -c71 -ntod -startr:SciFiFriday_SG1_and_Atlantis###.mpg -qvcd -limit:7320") so I'm really glad I don't have to know how to code it. If I want to schedule a show manually, I can use the WinTV Scheduler program that has a nice GUI interface prompting me for times, dates, duration, channels, file location, etc. Currently, the only show I have set up on a recurring schedule is the SciFi Friday and just SG-1 and Atlantis which I scheduled manually to record as a single two-hour mpeg that I can burn to DVD-RW to watch in the living room if I want to. I use the same RW over and over because I don't want to keep the shows directly from SciFi because they're about 30% commercials.