Getting VHS Footage On My Mac

[nickyj182]

Help!

I have some old movies I have made that are only on VHS Tapes. I am wanting to put all of them on DVDs, the problem, how do I transfer them from VHS to my eMac G4. I have a Panasonic PVDV-51 MiniDV Camcorder but I don't think there is anyway I can play a tape through it, and record the footage onto MiniDV then put it on my comp. So please help me out someone!

 

[yoda13]

You can use a analog to digital converter. I belive Dazzle and Formac make one.

 

[Horrortaxi]

Does your DV camera have any kind of inputs? Most do. Connect the VCR to the DV camera (cable has RCA on 1 end, 1/8" on the other and probably came with the camera) and the DV camera to the computer (with firewire). Put the Camera on "VCR", it play on the VCR, capture in iMovie.

 

[seamuskrat]

I use the Canopus DVC 50 If you are a student, its dirt cheap, and does a very nice job at conversion with no hassles at all.

 

[evil_santa]

Help!

I have some old movies I have made that are only on VHS Tapes. I am wanting to put all of them on DVDs, the problem, how do I transfer them from VHS to my eMac G4. I have a Panasonic PVDV-51 MiniDV Camcorder but I don't think there is anyway I can play a tape through it, and record the footage onto MiniDV then put it on my comp. So please help me out someone!

You could also put these to VCD or SVCD, (using toast 6) as vhs is about the same quality as VCD. A VCD is burnt onto a normal Cd and holds about 74 min of video and a SVCD will hold about 35min. Most dvd players should play VDC, and newer DVDs can handle SVCD. If you have alot of footage it will save you $$$ in disks. You can have chapter, and menus but they are a lot simpler than a DVD menu.

 

[GovornorPhatt]

Macworld ran an in-deph story on this pretty recently: http://www.macworld.com/2004/05/features/fromvhstodvd/

 

[parrothead]

I use EyeTV to convert old VHS tapes to VCD. VCDs give about the same quality as VHS but only hold 70 minutes of video. EyeTV also captures TV in VCD or DVD quality. It has inputs for cable (as in cable TV) and RCA inputs from an external device (DVD, VHS, etc.) Check it out at http://www.elgato.com/ .