Analog video download to computer? How?

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BobsYourUncle

New Member
After many years with lots of video 8 tapes and nothing to play them with after a power failure wiped out my old Sony camcorder, I got a screamin' deal on a used camcorder similar to my old one I gave away as non-functioning. $10. off Craigslist last night and it works good enough to transfer analog videos!

Anyhow, I want to hook this up to my computer, download all my video tapes and then put them on DVD. No problem dealing with the videos after I get them on the computer, but getting them there is the issue right now.

I have a decent system with a Geforce 7800 GT video card with the pigtail that came with it to plug into the video card. I have googled this to death but can't find an answer on how to hook it up. I'm running WinXP Pro32

I understand plugging the VIVO cable into my video card and jacking the camcorder into one of the 6 jacks. The VIVO cable came with the video card. But the challenge is, I don't know which ones I use.

The VIVO cable has 6 jacks 2 - 6 pin, black and white, video in and video out. I know these don't get used.
Then there is 4 RCA jacks. Blue - marked Pb/COMP OUT, green marked Y OUT, Orange marked COMP IN and red marked Pr OUT I'm quite sure COMP stands for component.

The video out on the camcorder is easy - its yellow and marked video.
Which of these do I jack the video out from the camcorder to?

Then theres the sound. Do I have to run a patch cable to the sound in on my sound card? I don't really care about left and right channel output on the camcorder as long as I get the sound going in. They are likely the same anyhow, since the 2 mikes sit a quarter inch apart. Maybe theres a dedicated patch cable to combine the left/right RCA to the sound in on my card?

Then what do I use to capture the video? I would assume I have to use a video editing program of some kind. I have Pinnacle Studio v8 that I bought a few years ago for video editing.

I know I needs gobs of hard drive space to download analog. The machine I'm using has 4 - 250 gigs in a mirror/stripe RAID. I have a couple TB's of extra space on my network too. I'll burn to DVD as I go anyhow.

If any of you could offer some input, I would sure appreciate it
Thanks,
Bob
 
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PC eye

banned
You found the right place anyways if that helps?! :D

I capture video frrom analog sources like vhs and camcorders using believe it or not a tv tuner card. There are dedicated usb and pci type capture cards you can use as well. With the tuner the software is a recorder in itself for recording shows with the timer or manually starting a recording by simply clicking on the recording button.

With additional softwares like Cyberlink's PowerDirector you set the length of the capture and it will stop recording on it's own when the time limit you set is reached. That would be in mpeg II format there. Tnen you also need a video to dvd burning software for burning the captures onto disk. Nero and some others are the more popular.

With a tuner card many will see a yellow RCA phono for composite input as well as the S-Video type input. These will two other phono inputs for the left and right audio. A good example was the one just installed here within the last day that works on Vista as well as XP. The AVerTVHD A180 model is seen at http://www.aver.com/mpd/a180retail.html They have a line of capture and tuner cards to look over as one way to see that done there.
 
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BobsYourUncle

New Member
Glad I found the right place. . . i hope I did anyhow . . . .

Well, I'll try to muddle through it and see if I can make it work. I don't need a capture card because my vid card has the 6 pin plug to put the VIVO cable into.

I just want to make sure I plug the video out of my camcorder into the right RCA jack.
As for the sound, I just need to know what to use for jacking it into my sound card. I can always make one myself if I can't find the right one to buy. I just don't want to blow anything. I understand electronics and am very careful about plugging things willy nilly into each other. I can follow it through in my mind first to make sure I don't screw it up.

I'll load my Piinnacle 8 and check out the options. I have not had the program loaded for a couple years - back when I had it on a Win2K machine that has since died.

I guess I'll have to just rely on trial and error - probably heavy on the error. . . . . . . . .
 
P

PC eye

banned
The manual for the card itself should have an illustration that explains what each color plug is for. The red and black would be the typical left and right channels if audio. I would to look at the manual myself to know if the orange and green are input or output plugs shown there.

In the picture of the tuner card below you note three phono inputs below the S-Video jack with the yellow, white, and red. The yellow on most any tuner card is for composite video while the white and red jacks are for the left and right audio input. There you simply have to find out which one(blue, green, or orange) is the composte video input in order to hook up your camcorder that way.

You still need a vcr type or capture program for that to work however. Tuner cards have their own pvr and are readily detected by programs like Cyberlink's PowerDirector for direct video captures.

avertvtunercardol2.jpg
 
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