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don't waste time using a PC to do the VHS/MPEG conversion... it ties up the PC, touchy cards, software hassles... I speak from experience having spent about 18 months doing PC/VIDEO conversion till I finally wised up..
- if all you want to do is 'basic' recording (transfer, remove commercials, add chapters, burn). Get a stand-alone DVD-Recorder with a hardrive in it. I personally have a pair of Panasonic DMR-E80's. The Panasonic DMR-E85, DMR-E95 or Toshiba RD-SX53 are all good choices. You can feed the tape to the DVD-Recorder (or record off air/cable/sat), stack up multiple programs on the HD, edit the commericals, make simple menus and chapters and then burn them off to DVD-R. While you have it on the recorders HD, you can then burn MULTIPLE COPIES.
- if you want to do 'fancier' editing (slick menus, et.al.) or minor effects, audio tricks, etc.. then you have to step up.
- STILL use the set-top recorder to do the VHS>MPEG2 capture. Then (and I specifically mention the above recorders for this reason) you can DUB the MPEG2 streams to a DVD-RAM disc.
- Then get a PC DVD-Burner that will READ/WRITE DVD-RAM (Iomega, Panasonic SW-9572) and copy the MPEG2 file to the PC's HD.
- use WOMBLE MPEG VIDEOWIZARD (www.womble.com) for editing the MPEG2 file (commercial removal, editing tricks (I use this to 'unsqueeze' the end credits of some shows).
- then find a DVD-Authoring sofware you like.. from the low end of TMPGENC DVD AUTHOR (google) to DVD Lab (google) to ULead DVD Workshop2 and you're in business..
I've done about 500 discs of old TV, movies, home movies and I've weeded thru the chaff... with the price of the stand alone recorders down to where they are.. it's not worth messing with the PC Capture route.
and DON'T LET SOMEONE TELL YOU YOU "DON'T NEED A HARDDRIVE" in the stand-alone recorder. for the price differential and the abilities/ease gained.. it's a no brainer.
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