Converting Video Tape to Digital and Hosting It - Need Advice

[Sharpseo]

A friend of mine is trying to convert some video from a standard VHS tape to digital, and host it on his firm's website.

#1 - What hardware/software is good? Should it be left to the professionals, or attempted by curious tinkerers?

#2 - Anyone know of a good tutorial or want to share advice on the basics of compressing and hosting video clips? We're probably talking 5 minutes of video tops, and the traffic would not be heavy. He's a lawyer, wants it to be part of his bio on the site. So the compression doesn't have to be perfect, just good enough so it will download at a reasonable rate.

Thanks in advance.

[mdvaldosta]

Many digital video cameras have rca inputs, you could run the vhs tape through the digital camera and get it in digital format.

Also, Pinnacle makes a DVC80 that you can run RCA or svideo inputs into the device and send it to your computer through a usb port. Costs about $40

[mystikmedia]

I would recommend to get a WinTV PCI tuner card. It is the best I have seen as far as not having problems with MacroVision. As for software, if you're wanting to go to MPEG, I would recommend WinDVR. If you're wanting to go to AVI or WMV, you may want to check out Blaze Media Pro's video capture (http://www.blazemp.com/video_capture_software.htm) feature.

[philately]

i recommend a video forum =)

[mystikmedia]

This is a "Graphics & Multimedia" forum...

[jellyfish]

I have all the equiptment setup over here, and you can pm me with more details for a quote. It would definantly be cheaper than a "professional firm" and would probably even be cheaper than buying all the equiptment.

Here is what I have, and it works very well. A Canopus analog to digital converter, Final Cut Pro, Discreet cleaner, 2 powerbooks, and several lacie external hard drives.

Hope that helps some.