Transfering VHS Video to DVD

[Beswad]

I have some homemade VHS videos I wish to transfer to DVD using my laptop DVD drive. Can anyone tell me what hardware I need to connect from video souce to laptop and what software would be ideal for this?

[vehelpfulguy]

To be honest copying VHS tapes to your hard drive and then to DVD is a complex and expensive way to do it.

A much better way is to connect your VHS player to a domestic DVD recorder.

Put the VHS tape in the VHS player and a blan DVD in the DVD recorder, press PLAY on the VHS and RECORD on the DVD.

I do this all the time for our family VHS tapes and it is so easy.

[vehelpfulguy]

If you do want to use your laptop then you need something called a "video capture card".

For a desktop PC this can go inside the case, but for a laptop you need an external one.

Here is a picture of an INTERNAL one (if you had a desktop PC)

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=2 18064&&source=14&doy=search

Here is an EXTERNAL one

http://www.computervideo.net/dec04-1.html

Note that video takes up a LOT of hard disk space and it may be your laptop does not have a large enough hard disk.

It also needs a lot of computing power so your laptop may struggle unless it is a recent one.

[vehelpfulguy]

Two companies to look out for are

Pinnacle
http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/uk/Home/

Dazzle (I think Pinnacle own them now)
http://www.ciao.co.uk/Dazzle_Digital_Video_Cre ator_90__Review_5660168

Search under "VHS to DVD" for some useful articles, like this

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?news id=11484

[Beswad]

Appreciate your answers VHG. I don't have a stand alone DVD recorder unfortunately. I just thought I'll use my laptop DVD to do the job thus avoiding anymore clutter of more cables behind the TV :-)

[Andyban]

I think you are better going off to Argos and buying a VHS to DVD recorder.