How do you transfer things from VCR to your PC?

[Guest JacK]

Does this involve a lot of complicated stuff, or is it pretty simple? What sort of extra stuff do you need to do it, and is it expensive to get said stuff?

[razazteca 0]

Big hard drive, tv card or All-in-One video card, video codecs.

[Lil' Bitch 0]

I got my cap card for $80, but I'm sure there's cheaper ones out there. I record matches in MPG format, so however long the match is, just add a zero to then and there's your file size.

 

10 minute match = 100 MBs

 

You can turn it into .wmv format, but as the file size lessens, so does the video quality.

 

Tis a bitch.

[Guest fk teale]

You can get a solid capture card for $40 or less. I've been using virtual vcr to record, then encoding with virtualdub using the divx codec.

 

Doing basic captures and encoding is pretty straightforward - filtering and editing and otherwise altering the video you capture can get a little more complicated. Expect to do a fair bit of reading if you're really concerned about video quality. The capture FAQ at doom9.org is as good a place as any to start, and has a good caveat to take note of before you buy any hardware: "Capturing video is a mix between finding the right settings and being lucky. Nobody will be able to tell you the best possible setup for your system."

[Guest JacK]

Cool, thanks for the help guys, I'll look into this . . . and getting an extra external harddrive as well to fit all the stuff on!