VHS to laptop...

[used2jeep]

...for purposes of motorcycle ride cheesy movies. OK, not even a movie really but more so I can share the ride highlights with family at home.

I've got an older Sony mini8 (?) cam with s-video out and a Tohiba laptop with what I think is a firewire port.

I tried one of those Camera Mate things from Radio Shack but the softwre wouldn't install. Back it went!

Thoughts and help is much appreiated. I tried the search but might have had poor syntax or I just don't understand phototalk.

[photodoug]

concentrate on "video capture" devices....here's (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category_tlc.asp?CatId=1423) an example of what TigerDirect has. Start with something from clearance....cheap to experiment with until you get a handle on what works/doesn't work. Dazzle is a popular model.

[David_S85]

Hang in there U2J, someone with video importing skills will probably stop in here and help out soon.

EDIT:
Hehehehe. See, someone did, above, just as I was composing this.

[used2jeep]

Thanks folks! Everyone has to start somewhere. Once I get that figured out, most likely time consuming. I'll work on the camera choice or maybe just learn on how to frame and realize what a god shot will/would be. :D

[cmason]

I recommend Pinnacle Systems products. Been a user of their Studio line of products for MiniDV video editing for a long time.Their Studio software gets very high ratings in PC Mag etc.

Oh and yes, this is extremely time consuming!

Looks like you might be a candidate for the Studio 500 USB (http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/us/Products/Consumer+Products/Home+Video/Studio+Family/Studio+500-USB+version+10_5+Documents/Technical+Specifications/Technical+Specifications+500USB_10_5.htm)

[used2jeep]

Couple of good suggestions. I'm very pleased about the same mfg. of them as well. I might be in trouble though because I think I only have 1.1 USB ports on my Toshiba M35. Probably still ok though. I'll ask the support folks at Tiger.

[colourbox]

USB 1.1 might actually be OK for the very very low resolution of VHS. If you need USB 2.0, stick a cheap USB 2 card in your Toshiba PC card slot (assuming most laptops have them).

[ChrisJ]

I use a Canopus ADVC-100. It accepts input from composite or S-Video, and has a firewire interface for use with your favorite video editing software. I use Sony Vegas; the *only* program I could find for the PC that I found usable. Otherwise I would have bought a Mac just for Final Cut.

It has been replaced with the ADVC-110 (http://www.canopus.com/products/ADVC110/index.php) [canopus.com]. I believe it's functionally equivalent.

At $200-$230, it's more than the cheaper converters, but I believe the quality is worth it.

[cmason]

Don't even think about USB 1.1. It is intolerable for transfering digital photos, digital video is much larger. 4mins of video is about 1GB.

The Studio software I mentioned above helps by doing a quick, low res capture, and you edit on that. Then when you are ready to create your video file, it goes and grabs the hi-res video segments, and puts it all together. So you really transfer twice, but the hi-res stuff only in small bits. I use a Firewire card, and it takes really only minutes to transfer say 20 mins of low res video, but the final video rendering takes several hours, even on my 3000+AMD, 1GB, with a higher end vidoe card. Chances are, you laptop will be smokin'...be patient.