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View Full Version : Need a simple capture/edit/DVDauthor program


Atamido
18th December 2003, 06:35
As the title says, I'm looking for a program. The problem is that it is not for me, it is for a friends family. They want to build a computer to capture their VHS home movies and make them into DVDs. They were originally going to buy a Dell, but I told them I could probably find all of the parts for cheaper.

This family is not very tech oriented at all though. So, I need a program that can do this in a very simple manner. I tried searching this forum, but I couldn't find anything in the past year that dealt with this specifically.

Having capturing, editing, and author/burning is important because it really needs to be as simple as possible.

If it comes with the DVD writer, thats great, but it needs to capture too. Also, I don't know if any capture cards would come with software that supports DVD authoring/burning. If it does, but some features are neutered, thats fine. I can't imagine they want to get to complicated. And finally, I don't think that a $700 piece of software is going to be in the price range.

Oh, and did I mention I would give them a list of what it would cost by tomorrow?

Any suggestions would be spectacular.

pepipocpoc
18th December 2003, 18:42
Hi

I bought a pinacle acquisition card for exactly this purpose ; but can't say I'm very happy with it :( . It's veeeeeery looooong. Anyway, did you try the "capturing video" forum?

By the way, I would be interested in any return :D .

Let me know.

Kedirekin
18th December 2003, 18:50
The only home setup I've heard of that seemed to be taken seriously (by the people talking about it, at any rate) was:

record VHS tape to DV Cam
pull DV footage into a Mac over firewire
use iMovie to turn the DV footage into a DVD


I'm sure there must by a comparable approach on the PC, but it's the Mac and iMovie that make it newbie friendly.

maa
18th December 2003, 20:22
ATI Radeon Grafic card with video In/Out gets your VHS into the computer in Mpeg with their own software or alternativly go straight to:
MyDVD (.com) does the capturing and Authoring - simple and reliable.
(around $70 I think)

OR

VideoDeLuxe (USA name: Movie Maker Pro)from Magix.com
Prize winning video editor/authoring tool with thousands of effects - realtime!- and a dummy/newbie mode (around $90 I think - get the demo!)
EDIT:
Just seen it for €49.-

mike3244
20th December 2003, 19:21
I have been doing exactly the same thing for my in laws. I use a Lifeview 3000 TV tuner and capture card. For high quality captures I use Flyvideo 2000 to capture to AVI and then reprocess, or if you want a quick and reliable method I use WinDVR to capture into MPEG2 format. You should also watch out when buying cards and software as not all capture software works with Phillips chipsets.