Question

[Jen5678]

Hi everyone.

I am new to MACs and I was wondering if anyone new if there is a way to connect my VHS/DVD player to my G5 tower, so I can put my old home video tapes onto my hard drive to burn on DVD. I was able to do this with my PC, and I wasn't sure if it is even possible on a MAC.

Thank You
Jen

 

[Solafaa]

What kind of programs do you use on your pc?

 

[Jen5678]

I have like IMovie, IDVD, Final Cut Express

but I just got my MAC a couple days ago. So I am kinda lost. I don't know what kind of program you would need or anything.

 

[Blue Velvet]

First of all, you've got to get a usable signal from your VHS.
Tell us what model it is and what outputs it has on the back...

How did you connect it to your PC? What kind of cable? Where did you plug it in into your PC?

Quite possibly (and unfortunately) you may have to purchase a video-in card of some sort to take Scart, or a video signal of some flavour...

 

[Jen5678]

It's a Sylvania DVC850C

It has Coaxial Digital Audio Out, Component Video Out, S Video Out, DVD/VCR Audio Out, DVD/VCR Out, R/L Audio In and a Video In.

I had a video card in my PC, I asked about purchasing one for my G5 but they said they don't sell them for the G5s.

Can I convert RCA and SVideo to firewire?

 

[Fender2112]

Take a look at the Canopus ADVC-100. It's an analog to DV converter. I've been using one for about a year to do exactly what you described. I import 8mm and VHS tapes via Final Cut Express. Then edit them with FCE. I then use iDVD to burn the movies to DVD. Make sure you have plenty of disk space. A 2 hour tape uses about 25GB of hard disk.

Note: If you use Norton System Works be sure to turn it off before "Capturing" video. Otherwise you will become very frustrated.

 

[broken_keyboard]

I think the way it works on the Mac is you connect your movie camera directly to your computer, then iMovie downloads the footage from your camera to your hard drive. You need a camera that supports Firewire (IEEE 1394) connection. There is a Firewire port on the front of your G5 for plugging the movie camera in, it is the lowest one with one rounded edge and one flat edge. I don't know how to get data off old VHS tapes sorry.

 

[mslifkin]

I have like IMovie, IDVD, Final Cut Express

but I just got my MAC a couple days ago. So I am kinda lost. I don't know what kind of program you would need or anything.

Hi Jen(5678),

What you need is a bridge between your analog (VCR) video source and your Mac. If you've got a digital camcorder you can use that as the bridge, provided it supports analog passthrough (most do, I believe). You would connect the audio and video out from your VCR (yellow is video, red and white are audio) to your digital camcorder. you would then take the firewire output from your camcorder and connect that to your G5.

If you don't have a digital camcorder, you could get either a Formac Studio TVR (http://www.formac.com/p_bin/?cid=solutions_converters_studiodvtv) or a Canopus ADVC-300 (http://www.canopus.us/US/products/ADVC300/pm_advc300.asp) to do what you need to do. The Formac unit is around $300, and the Canopus unit retails for $600; not inexpensive by any means. The Formac Studio TVR has a built in TV tuner, so you can record live television on your G5 in addition to capturing your video tapes. The Canopus doesn't have a tuner built in, but it does have a feature called audio lock. What happens is when you try to capture analog video over time the audio and video get out of sync. So, you'll see someone's lips move, then a split second later hear what they're saying. If you're trying to capture say 2 hours worth of video, it will be fine in the beginning, might start to drift by the middle, and be mostly annoying towards the end. So the audio lock is a good thing to have. It also is supposed to "clean up" or enhance the analog video; can't verify this one way or the other as I don't have one ...yet. There are other units out there as well, I just mentioned the two I'm familiar with. How did you get the analog video into your PC? If it's got a firewire connection, try connecting that to your G5, and use iMovie to capture your video. I've done that before as well; I've got a Canopus ADVC1394 card in my PC, and I connect that to my G5 with a firewire cable. The PC essentially powers up the card, and the card feeds the video to my G5. Let us know how you make out.

Regards,
Marc

 

[Jen5678]

Thank you for all your help. I tried the vcr to my camcorder and it wouldn't pass through, I would have to record it to a DV then to my hard drive.

I think I am going to check into the Formac Studio TVR.

Thank you again.

Jen

 

[RockyKmayK]

Scart output to Final Cut Express

This question might have been answered already, but I am new to Final Cut Express. So any help is appreciated. I am trying to capture VHS tape segments onto my hard drive going from my combo Sony TV/VCR unit via a Scart output. I have a canopus interface, so that am going from Scart to Svideo and RCA lead into Canupos and out from Canupos via firewire to my hard drive. Problem is that Final Cut does not recognize the signal. Has anyone come across this? Appreciate any leads. tks