Suggestions for USB TV Capture units/FM/DVB-T

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pjamieson

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#27633 2-Nov-2008 14:01

Hi all,

I'm trying to find a Video Capture device so I can record some of my old recordings from VHS tapes into digital format. As I have a laptop it would need to be USB. I've looked around and can't really find anything.

I was hoping these units had FM and DVB-T too, or a mixture of 2 units with these 3 options. If they had Analog TV or DVB-Sat that would be good as well, but they are not necessary. Hoping they are not too expensive too.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Regards,
PJ.

numfarr

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#176174 5-Nov-2008 19:00

Does your laptop have firewire? The easiest and best-quality solution is to borrow or rent a digital camcorder with external inputs, play the VHS into the camcorder inputs and record it on the laptop using the camcorder's firewire output. Some newer camcorders will have USB outputs. This way you have no messing about with drivers and you will usually get good quality captures.

Alternatively this looks OK for $US35 incl postage, or maybe this would be good enough for VHS.

pjamieson

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#177188 10-Nov-2008 18:09

No wirewire unfortunately. Does the first one have DVB-T? Was hoping to find something in NZ too.

numfarr

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#177239 10-Nov-2008 23:09

No, the Dealextreme card only does analogue. There is the Pinnacle PCTV Hybrid Pro Stick 340E which does DVB and analogue. It's not totally clear whether it has a composite input as well as an aerial input, but have a look around.

You really need a fast laptop to play MPEG-4 DVB-T in software; I tried it with a PCTV nano on a 2GHz dual-core T7200, but the processor couldn't keep up.

pjamieson

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#178132 15-Nov-2008 12:55

Thanks, I might go check out some of those stores!