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General discussion

Can I convert VHS-C to DVD easily and affordably?

Jan 30, 2005 11:02AM PST

I have a decent Video camera that is a little old but works well. I also have a DVD burner on my PC. I would like to continue to use the camera and convert the VHS tapes to my PC to edit and burn to DVD for storage and replay.

I have noticed a few converters on the market for $70-150 and have heard differing reviews on their quality. My father in-law has a TV tuner card on his PC (can I convert using that?).

What do you recommend? Am I better off buying a new video camera or sticking with the one I have and buying a converter or having my father in law convert them?

Discussion is locked

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Can I convert VHS-C to DVD easily and affordably?
Feb 8, 2005 3:30AM PST
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Converting to DVD
Feb 12, 2005 6:26PM PST

If there is alot of editing to do, then by all means do it yourself! But if you just have tapes that you want ported straight to DVD, then you can get that done pretty cheap these days. Even some 1 hour photo stores do it (but not in an hour)

You can't do the digitizing through the TV tunr card...sorry. And no matter what, you are going to need alot of hard drive space.
A rough rule of thumb is:
1 gig = 5-6 minutes

You are probably looking at the DAZZLE converters.
There are 3 different versions of Dazzle and as far as I can tell they all come with the same software for editing and making DVD's, but they come with different connector boxes. If you ever plan on moving up to a Digital Video Camera, I'd spring for the DVC150, it has a plug for a firewire cable, so you can plug your digital camera in when the time comes. It also converts to MPEG-2 (dvd file format) on the fly as it records in, which will save you hard drive space.

Otherwise, get the DVC 90, it is a Hi-speed USB port.

Dazzles aren't the most stable things because it is USB and the quality won't be great because of the inputs. But you are coming from VHS-C so it won't matter.