analog to digital

[diversteve]

Thanks everyone. I guess I am just going to have to do the tedious editing for now.

My videos are raw right now. When I was working on the cruise boat I shot videos of the shows that the entertainers did fr the passengers. They are about 45 minutes long. I have them on VHS but wanted to put them on CD.

I am also looking to purchase a housing for it, if there is one, so I can take videos underwater.

I have a Reefmaster that I have been using for the past 5 years but recently went digital.

If I can't find a housing for the camcorder then I will probably go digital there as well.

Thanks again for all the input.

Cheers!

If I'm getting this right, I think Pinnacle Studio AV/DV will do all you want. It comes with an Analog/S-Video/Digital(Firewire) capture card so you can input from your camcorder or VHS VCR and output to tape, VCD, DVD, AVI, MPEG, Windows Media, RealPlayer etc. So you can make a VCD or save the files as WM or another format for viewing on a PC. It also does titling, transitions, DVD menus, sound etc. if you're wanting to make a production out of your videos. The whole thing cost me $99 at BestBuy a couple years ago.

There is a capture limitation with Pinnacle, but it's longer. If I recall correctly it's somehow hardware based, I think mine wound up being about 22mins. per clip. But you can edit multiple clips at the same time. I've also read on another forum that converting a drive/partition to NTFS instead of FAT32 under XP modifies this limitation.

 

[mossym]

if you get a card like the hauppage prv150 it has a hardware mpeg2 encoder, it will converto to mpeg 2 on the fly as it imports, then you have the whole file ready to burn to dvd or vcd or svcd or whatever you like..

 

[socaldiver]

I have seen the Pinnacle software at CompUSA, so I will stop down there and check it out.

SJSpeck - Thanks for the websites on all those housings. I actually found 4 that have universal housings and it appears they are adaptable for my antiquated Canon, and best of all, not going to cost an arm and a leg.

 

[RickSp]

Ok, I am really confused. If you have a Hi8 camera with only analog outs, you need a hardware converter to convert to DV (or a DV camera with an analog digital pass-through).

If you can capture anything at all, it sounds like you have some way to get the footage on to your computer. Some software has a 2 gig files size capture limit (that is about 10 minutes). Depending on how well the software is set up, this can be painless or a pain. Good software will just capture a series of 10 (or closers to 91/2) minute clips which you can put together seamlessly when you edit the footage.

I use Vegas to capture and edit. If you don't need the entire editing package, there is a great software package designed just for capturing that I have used and like alot as well. Scenalyzer I think there is a free downloadable version and the full version only costs around $40. It might might your capturing a whole lot easier.

 

[mack50md]

I use a Dazzle 150 Digital Video Converter to convert analog tapes to difgital for PC editing. Its a black box D/A converter that comes with software. Try this link Pinnacle Systems