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Topic: BetaMax Tapes (Read 1923 times) previous topic - next topic
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BetaMax Tapes

Some of you older guys may remember BetaMax an old video recording system (arguably the best). Anyway, I have an old BetaMax recorder and literally hundreds of tapes of Rugby, Cycling etc.
I want to digitise these using my computer and then burn them on to DVD. Problem is I have no idea where to start, what hardware and software will be required etc, etc.

Can anybody point me in the correct direction and even advise what equipment to purchase?

Cheers

BetaMax Tapes

Reply #1 –
You need either a video capture card, or graphics card with video input.
I don't know what are good or bad brands (perhpas others will tell you), but you may take a look at Pinnacle offer for video capture cards (and software). If you have a low-end PC, you may want to get a video capture card with hardware MPEG encoding.
Video inputs in graphics cards are called VIVO, so if you see some nVidia or ATI graphics card with VIVO, it means that you can capture video with it.
If your recorder has only modulated output (though I doubt it), none of the above will be of use for you, in such case you'll need a tuner (ATI All-in-Wonder graphics card, or some Pinnacle tuner for example).
There's a lot of software for capturing (including free ones), you'll probably get some along with hardware.