Hey gang,

I have an ATI Radeon VIVO and an ATI TV wonder, how do I take a VCR and run a tape then record it on my computer in Mpeg or AVI format ? Which is better ? Can I run the VCR directly into my video card or does it matter ? Which is better ?

Thanks for all the help.

You should be able to find answers to all of your questions here: http://www.vcdhelp.com/

I've used VirtualDub successfully to do what you are describing. FYI: an uncompressed AVI at 320x200@30fps w/16k sound is something like 1GB per 4 minutes of video. You'll almost definitely want to use a compression algorithm like MPEG4 unless you need to do several conversions for steps like editing, dubbing, or VCD creation. You don't want to capture to MPEG4 if you're final goal is to create a VCD. Basically what I'm saying is that "better" depends on your end goal.

Thanks Elcarion.

My goal is to put a 15 minute tape of a friends on to a CD-Rom. I want it to hopfully be as small as it can compressed wise. I have seen stuff that is not very big in size fit on a CD-R so that is my ultimate goal.

With VirtualDub, capture first with lossless codec, like HuffYUV, then compress it to DivX. You might want to use TV filter when compressing to DivX, it improves picture quality a bit when the signal is VHS/similar.

Any idea's where I can get a filter ? Would it be found at Radio Shack ?

You can buy filters from Radio Shack, but I'm talking about VirtualDub's internal filters

Excellent advise Mictlantecuhtli. I've seen my friend use the Huff codec and it's been very promising. But since you're only gonna convert a 15 minute clip, you can even do w/o compression; although not recommended coz it will suck your hard disk dry. If you don't mind a huge file in yer hard disk, then capture the video, then compress it and delete the source.

Ahh, those kind of filters. Do you have any links where I may obtain them ??

And thanks for the advice Lokum, I have 120 gig total so yes I could convert first then compress then delete. I just want the finished product to fit on a CD-R disk.

VirtualDub has a number of filters builtin, TV filter being one of them. Just set "video" to "full processing mode" and click the first item on "video" menu. You might want to compress audio to MP3 or Ogg Vorbis, too.