Hi there, I've searched everywhere and have just joined up in an effort to figure out all this - I'm giving up after this!! I bought an Iomega DVD Drive/Burner (USB) quite a few months ago and have tried (unsuccessfully) to copy video from both my VHS recorder as well as my Sony digital video camcorder. I really have no idea still what is going wrong in either case and would love some very easy instructions on how to go about things. When trying to copy from the Digital camcorder it asks me if it is PAL or NTSC - but it's neither - right? Anyway I've tried it on both and it just doesn't want to work. The only thing I have been able to do is to put a photograph slideshow on dvd. Not very exciting I can tell you! I got software with the DVD but am I supposed to have something else, like a video card or something so it all works. Please, please, save me from myself!!
Hi Kajja, Actually DV cams are either NTSC or PAL. So you'd better know which type is yours. To capture DV tapes you need a FireWire plug on your PC (also called IEEE-1394, or i.LINK in the Sony world). To capture VHS tapes you need a capture card for analog sources. Notice some expensive video cards have that feature. As far as software is concerned, if you run Windows XP and don't want to spend money, give a try to Windows Movie Maker 2 (download it for free from Microsoft site). It can capture from DV (and also from VHS if your capture card is supported). Notice Movie Maker cannot author a DVD (it cannot even encode to MPEG-2). Cheers, Daba
The Dazzle Digital Video Creator 150 ($150 USD) can capture video from RCA and S-Video inputs and encodes the video onto your HDD directly into MPEG-2 format. I'm planning on buying it next month - hopefully it will be a little cheaper!
I am having a simaliar problem. I am using Roxio DVD builder to transer vhs to DVD. I took a clip from some video tape 2 min clip burned it played on DVD in living room. I took a concert and transfered it to the hard drive it came to 3.2 gigs burned to DVD will only play in computer. My capture device has 12 bit and 16 bit audio encoder I don't think that had anything to do with it. What is funny the 2 min motorcylce video clip worked fine I don't know what went wrong I have the video on the hard drive will windows movie maker work to burn to DVD I have no idea what went wrong the concert is only 54 min long. I would appreciate it if anybody has any info or input. I am using the DAC-100 for my transfer to the hard drive their site is www.datavideo-tek.com Please HELP....
Hi guys, here is a guide that may help get you started. http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/convert_avi_to_dvd.cfm Good Luck. Jerry