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agentphish

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 7, 2004
1,140
0
As the subject says, whats the best/fastest/most easy way for me to rip a VHS tape to my powerbook?

Would it be A/V cables out of the VHS and into my powerbook somehow and use imovie or what?

Thanks
 

ChrisBrightwell

macrumors 68020
Apr 5, 2004
2,294
0
Huntsville, AL
You need a Digital-to-Analog (D/A) converter. If you have a DV camcorder with A/V inputs and Firewire output, you probably already have everything you need. Read the user's manual for details on how to use your camcorder as an D/A converter (also sometimes called a bridge).

Alternatively, you need something like this:
http://mail.formac.co.uk/webapp/products_av_studiodv.php

Here's an Apple support article on the topic:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=61745

And the full list of devices supported by iMovie:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/upgrade/camcorders.html
 

munkees

macrumors 65816
Sep 3, 2005
1,027
1
Pacific Northwest
Yes I used my DV camera to rip my vhs into imovies then on to idvd. It did have problems with commerical vhs, which I just wanted to move to dvd so I no longer need to plug in the vhs into the TV.
 

chaos86

macrumors 65816
Sep 11, 2003
1,006
7
127.0.0.1
or if you had ever thought about tv on your mac, and thus recording tv to ipod, elgato eyetv will do the trick.
 

balamw

Moderator emeritus
Aug 16, 2005
19,366
979
New England
munkees said:
Yes I used my DV camera to rip my vhs into imovies then on to idvd. It did have problems with commerical vhs, which I just wanted to move to dvd so I no longer need to plug in the vhs into the TV.
Ah Macrovision...

I have a Sony TRV-11 camcorder I have been using for this purpose and am in the process of converting some VHS tapes that were originally Super8 film. Wish I had the original film to skip a generation, but they are gone.

Note that if you don't already have a suitable DV camcorder, and don't want or need one, you can often pick up a broken one on eBay for < $100 where the A/D conversion circuitry is just fine by the lens or the tape transport mechanism is shot. Generally dedicated DV compatible A/D boxes are as costly as a lower end DV camcorder that will also support the same function.

B
 

teerexx52

macrumors 68020
May 1, 2005
2,065
161
Florida West Coast
agentphish said:
As the subject says, whats the best/fastest/most easy way for me to rip a VHS tape to my powerbook?

Would it be A/V cables out of the VHS and into my powerbook somehow and use imovie or what?

Thanks
I use EyeTv 200. Works great for VHS
 
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