h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Quack my dear chap
I was not aware that audio tape and video tape can be put onto disc via computer. I take it I need special software and somr kind of cable connection from music centre to P.C. I would be grateful for any advice you could give

Kif

Ahoy Kif,

If you can see it or hear it you can put it on disc nowadays, but I'm afraid you will need a bit more than a few bits of cable

Here goes....

Before going any further, you need an enormous amount of free disc space due to the fact that Video tape is uncompressed, even short clips can use 20Gb of space.

(1) You need to download the info from the VCR into the hard drive, so you will need a video 'capture' card fitting into your motherboard, that will give you connections on the rear of the computer for the normal output from the VCR. That would be S.C.A.R.T. to either 2x RCA phono plugs or S-VHS nowadays. That will covert the Analogue signal to Digital and then you can manipulate it to your hearts content. A decent board will handle VHS (standard VCR format),VHS-C, AVI and all other camera formats. Cost from about £50.00.

(2) You will also need a 'burner' to make the disc, you could get away with a CD burner but you would have to settle for VideoCD or Super-VCD neither of which is as good as DVD nor as long. The price of these has crashed in recent months and you can get a good make now for about £40.00. They are worth buying whether you decide to go ahead or not simply because of the huge data storage area they have for backing up files (4.7Gb). A DVD burner will invariably write and re-write all DVD and CD discs, the more recent ones will give you dual layer burning, ie 9.4Gb on the appropriate discs. (If you want to get really you can get double sided dual layer discs and burners)

(3) Software shouldn't be a problem, the capture card should include it or be 'plug and play' on XP. You should be able to get original equipment (OEM) Nero Version 6 with the burner for about a fiver, although some card manufacturers include Ulead 7 with the capture card as part of the deal, in which case you wouldn't need Nero.

(4) Five buckets of Patience and a large swear box

(5) I'm afraid I cheated in the early days with audio, I bought a Digital voice recorder on EBay, one with a download facility and software. Being digital it will record perfectly whatever comes out of the stereo, if you do it that way you must place it on a cushion, they are so sensitive even the slightest rattle sounds horrible on playback.
Then simply burnt it to CD using the format conversion in the software.
The one I bought will fit in a breast pocket and record up to two and a half hours on long play. (the possibilities are endless

(6) photographs are a doddle, Nero has a slide show facility which allows to to show your 'gallery' on TV via a DVD player and page through them just like the old fashioned slide projector, you can get hundreds of photo's on a CD.

(7) Go on holiday with the proceeds of the swear box and gather even more material.

(8) If it all sounds like a there are various companies who will do it for you, I have located a few, there is probably one local to you as well, I was surprised at how reasonable some of the prices were.....

http://www.evermedia.co.uk/

http://www.vhscopy2dvd.co.uk/index.htm.

http://www.vitalvideos.com/

http://www.motionvideography.co.uk/


Quack

Thank you Sir
I have printed off your thread and will study it at leisure
I have nero so pics are no problem.
I shall rush to e bay and see if I can find a Digital voice recorder, then I can record all my stuff off the tapes and records onto disc.
As I am a knight of the realm I never swear so the box will not be needed you cheeky B****r.
Thank you for your help Quack, I will keep you posted.
<cheers.
Kif

Whoa fella,

I thought you meant just the odd audio tape, particularly your dear old Mum, that would be fine for doing that.

If you want to do records and music tapes I suggest something a bit more professional, like this, should be fairly straightforward

http://www.packardbell.co.uk/specialevents/infocenter/01/Howto/CDwriting/01cdwht04/01cdwht04.htm

Cheers, Quack