i have a bunch of old vhs casettes that i would really like to put onto dvd. i just bought a dvd burner for my computer and i dont have a vhs player anymore. what do i have to buy and whats an estimate of how much it would all cost? keep in mind that i am looking for the cheapest way to do this without getting bad results.
You are going to need something to play the tapes on in the first place. Once you spend enough to do that, make it easy on yourself and just buy a tape/disk combo unit. I got one when an old vcr died and the cost was under 100 bucks. First thing I did was to transfer daughter's HS graduation to disk. Very easy, great results. I found the 2 hour speed or less worked well; 4 hour speed sucked. The combo unit will dub either way, but won't do copyright stuff. So, if your tapes are copyrighted, you will need to search more. If not copyrighted, you are there.
I found KWorld's ($49.95 I think it was) to be my hard and software solution to converting analog video to digital (into DVD/VCD/SVCD). Even affords Direct-Burn's to DVD without any extra HD space. Includes: slim inline adapter, connection chart, great software for ULead MovieFactory4 and PVR Plus* (TVR for the TV too). Works with VCR's, cable, etc. http://www.kworld.com.tw/en/index_editing.htm System rqmts are: Pentium-IV 1.6GHz or above (2.2GHz recommended) 256 MB RAM of system memory or above (512MB recommended) One available USB2.0 port Graphics card (Must support DirectX 9.0c) 1/8" audio jack (mono or sterio, either works) Sound card (AC97 compatible sound card) 1GB free HD space CD-ROM drive (For software installation) Microsoft® Windows 2000(SP4) / XP(SP2) For music, I found (free) Audacity works great for converting my cassettes. The only things I haven't yet found cracks for are converting iTunes's m4p files, that and converting .rm vids to wmv, etc.
