Life is good! Life is good! Life is good!

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

Ok the excitement is basically personal to me hehe.

After avoiding it hiding from it delaying it not wanting to knuckle under and master it, I finally figured out the doodad I have here that allows me to convert vhs from my vcr through the doodad and into my computer, thence onto a cd/dvd so I can play all my precious tapes with hundreds of hours of military documentary footage, but on a decent dvd player.

Life is good life is good life is good

Ok surely you guys have had the same experience eh, where some manner of technology has given you headaches and promised so much, but mystified you so completely.

Today is the day Les conquered a piece of tech, and by god I feel grrrrrrrreat.

Now all I have to do is sit here and process several hundred vhs tapes heheh.

Going to sooooooooo love throwing them out too.

Think I will be taking the vcr to my buddy's when the last tape is done, so we can torture it to death as well.

[Belisarius]

That's great Les.

Keep one thing in mind though: CD/DVD discs have a considerable shorter shelf life than VCR tapes. So make backups of the discs every 5 years or so. And keep them dark...

[Von Rom]

Great news Les.

I would also suggest keeping your VCR and tapes since there are lots of great docs that are worth taping off the TV, especially those on the History Channel [:)]

Cheers!

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

Actually Von Rom, it is easier in today's tech environment to just take the TV signal from the TV and ship it to the computer directly.

When my last tape is copied to cd, you can bet the vcr will be unwanted heheh.

[Von Rom]

ORIGINAL: Les_the_Sarge_9_1

Actually Von Rom, it is easier in today's tech environment to just take the TV signal from the TV and ship it to the computer directly.

When my last tape is copied to cd, you can bet the vcr will be unwanted heheh.

I guess I'm still a little behind the tech curve - heheh

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

Man I feel good.

Just processed my tape of Men at War: Peleliu 1944 Horror in the Pacific. 5 guys from the 1st division recounting their ordeal. One is the author EB Sledge who wrote the book With the Old Breed.

And the neat part, I don't have to re wind the tape Why would I want to hehe.

[runes]

ooh, a TV in/out card. I've got one of these on one of my computers, me and (i don't remember who else) had a very ambitious project going on a few years back wherein we'd record video of Close Combat (we were even thinking splicing in some footage of Day of Defeat for Half Life) edit it all together to make a nice and exciting little movie. I was also going to rip some sounds for mods, but never got around to it. (There was a thread, a very famous thread called something like "the sound of an mg42" which was several pages discussing the "real" sound of an mg42. I noted that it is heard, once, maybe twice in all of SPR, and still very feint and in the background. I was going to grab that sound and we'd all rejoice, but alas, i was and still am a lazy teenager.)

But, nonetheless, very sweet and useful tools those tv capture cards.

[DerekP]

ORIGINAL: Belisarius

That's great Les.

Keep one thing in mind though: CD/DVD discs have a considerable shorter shelf life than VCR tapes. So make backups of the discs every 5 years or so. And keep them dark...

This is not right unless you buy no-name dvds from chinese reject pressing plants.

Name brand DVDs will last 50 years - similar name brand vhs tapes will be lucky to last 10-15 years. Plus its easier to physically damage vhs tapes.

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

As with anything, it depends I think more on the person.

Who here has ever had a cd get jammed in their cd rom drive?

Ever had a vhs tape get jammed?

Who here has ever had a cd get scratched because they stupidly left it sitting on the desk out of the case?

Ever have trouble with a tape being damaged just because it wasn't in the case?

Ever had a cd or tape damaged by heat?

Ever had a cd accidentally erased?

Ever broken a tape by mistake?

For me, it's about being able to copy a cd indefinitely, and never have to wonder if the data has degraded from being copied a dozen times. Digital data basically stays what it is.

That, and ever had trouble storing 200 cds? I know I won't miss the space killing 200 vhs tapes heheh.

And my personal favourite, ever played a vhs tape on your computer?

Not to mention, ever get annoyed because you forgot to rewind the cd?

Tapes have nothing about them that is "ideal". Even a lousy brand cd is better.

Although, I must state, I have used every form of cd/dvd, from brand name to schlock.
And to date, only the brand named stuff has let me down
Maybe I have been lucky.
But it seems more important to having a good brand name piece of hardware, than a good brand name for the disk.
Thus far, I consider Toshiba the best out there for actually playing stuff off the computer.

[Von Rom]

Sony cds are great as well.

I would avoid the Memorex cds. They have a nasty habit of "losing" all your data so you can't access the cd.

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

Hmm interesting. Memorex is thus far the worst brand I have encountered too.

Only dvd I have encountered where it would not run in a dvd player.

For those interested, I have found the best prices for blanks is Blankmedia.com.

That is where my friend has often gotten the best prices. Of course, if you don't need much in the way of supply, it likely won't be as important. But he tends to download sheetloads of anime hehe

[Fred98]

Runes,

I was one of them. Alas it never happened.

[marky]

ORIGINAL: Les_the_Sarge_9_1

Ok the excitement is basically personal to me hehe.

After avoiding it hiding from it delaying it not wanting to knuckle under and master it, I finally figured out the doodad I have here that allows me to convert vhs from my vcr through the doodad and into my computer, thence onto a cd/dvd so I can play all my precious tapes with hundreds of hours of military documentary footage, but on a decent dvd player.

Life is good life is good life is good

Ok surely you guys have had the same experience eh, where some manner of technology has given you headaches and promised so much, but mystified you so completely.

Today is the day Les conquered a piece of tech, and by god I feel grrrrrrrreat.

Now all I have to do is sit here and process several hundred vhs tapes heheh.

Going to sooooooooo love throwing them out too.

Think I will be taking the vcr to my buddy's when the last tape is done, so we can torture it to death as well.

thats sumthing i have in common with ya

in my closet, are about 400 tapes

alot of them history/war stuff

whered u get that thingy thta lets u make tapes into dvds?

how much did it cost lol

i wanna put sumthing liek that into my computer, wen i get it

[Fred98]

Marky, when you study the features of graphics cards, you will discover that one option, is to have TV in / TV out feature.

If you choose to get such a card, you can plug your VRC into the graphics card.

Then you can play your tapes and watch on the computer.

If you have a DVD read/writer included in your computer, then, as you watch the tape, you can record to DVD.

When you talk to the 18yo computer geek, tell him that’s one of the things you want to use your computer for.

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

This is the doodad mentioned.

http://www.cwol.com/usb/ads-instant-dvd-plus-dv.htm

Its very handy, but hardly cheap, and chances are you can get a video card cheaper.

Now in my case, my computer did not have the ability to upgrade to accept the video card. Not to mention the doodad belongs to a buddy that doesn't mind how long I borrow it for hehe.

It is a very handy device though. But it won't perform the services of a video card, so keep that it mnd. It only does what it does.

I think the key feature with this device, is how easy it is to use, and how fast it does what it does. And I have no real skill in this area, so that says more than enough.

[marky]

ahh

thanx sarge

im very interested in this techy doodad, with my mountains of war tapes.......

o crap

now i have to buy a decent dvd player!


o well

thats a GOOD problem