VHS to laptop

Here is my situation. I would like to convert my vhs tapes into mpeg, or avi files. I'm running Vista Sp1 32 bit on a dv9500t. I can play tapes using a coaxial cable rf out to the tv's antenna. The ports I have on my VCR are just two of each of video/audio in and out. What device can I use to capture video/audio to to my laptop? I've searched , but I can't seem to find the right one. Any help would be appreciated.

 

Assuming these are legal to backup, I used the Canopus ACV110. It's more expensive, but the quality is great, and it has a feature to lock the audio, so it stays in sync with the video.
Plus some other "cool features". I highly recommend it, it only needs a firewire port, and no drivers.
I used Nero Vision to capture the video, and subsequently made DVD's, to backup my aging video library to optical disc.
I recommend capturing as DV AVI (going from memory here). The files will be larger, but the quality much better. Don't capture to mpg on the fly, the quality will really suffer! It's best to do post processing after the capture.
Also remember, you will never get better than VHS quality. My experience was, the quality was about equal to copying a master to vhs, and watching that. Still very watchable for me, so I didn't complain, but don't expect dvd quality by any means.

 

Or a Sandick V-Mate which puts stuff onto SD cards and then you can put them on your PC (mpeg-4)

 

Google around for products from Dazzle. They make a couple of inexpensive boxes that can convert VHS tapes into MPEG files, if the tapes aren't copy protected with Macrovision.

 

thanks for the replies

 

Just a quick question to resurrect this thread partially. I have different movies on my super8 tapes from my camcorder I'd like to put on optical discs and convert. I have a HP Express card tv tuner, and all the cables.

Would it be possible with just the tv tuner, laptop, and camcorder? I've got a cable for my camcorder that matches the red/white/yellow composite cable for the tv tuner.

Patrick

 

Before doing a massive VHS conversion project, I tried many (many) different DV capture devices. I was after quality, and reliability (no dropped frames, and perfect sound sync - every time). I only found one unit that really worked.

Of everything I tried, I think that the best quality and most reliable captures from VHS came from the Pennicle MoveiBox 1394/firewire box's (and not the USB version).

I would capture to DV format using the Pennicle software (or AMCap), and use TMpgenc to encode to MPEG 2.

I bought three of the boxes, and no longer need them.

J

 

if im not mistaken the camcorder should have come with a cable to connect directly to your computer.