# Help: What do I need to Transfer TV/VCR stuff to my PC (mpeg)



## buo (Oct 15, 2006)

how do you guys do it? what do I need to buy (hardware adapters/ cables, etc..? I want to make .gifs out of clips I've recorded on my old VCR?


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## BigRandy (Mar 2, 2007)

buo said:


> how do you guys do it? what do I need to buy (hardware adapters/ cables, etc..? I want to make .gifs out of clips I've recorded on my old VCR?


I'm no expert on this by any stretch of the imagination, but I will throw a couple things out to help get ya started. With any luck, someone will see what I posted, correct me, and we both will be better for it 

Anyway, first, to get the video from your source (VCR, CamCorder, Live TV/Cable/Sat feed, whatever, you need somekind of Video Capture Card. If you have firewire or USB2 you can use an external or you can get an internal card and intall it in an open pci slot. That is what I perfer, the internal card. Don't buy junk, or that is all you will end up with, is grainy looking junk. I have made some decent looking vids and I only use a mid level card, which I picked up for just under $100. Do your research and read all the reviews, your capture card is really the key to everything. Can't make a nice looking clip out of crappy looking video.

Most cards will come bundled with capture software which does ok, but you might want to spend a few bucks and buy yourself a decent capture program. Gives you more options and features for capturing. Also the next step, the editing software, most of the time a good editing suite will include capture software so this may not even be an issue.

Once you have the video on your hard drive. (Videos take lots of hard drive space so be prepared for that) Anyway, now you have the video you need some way of editing it. There is alot of editing software out there. From simple to use little programs to full blown editing suites. If all your gonna do is make little .gif files, you don't really need much, but once you start playing with it, you'll want to do more. I have a huge collection of fight videos. UFC, KOTC, Pride, K1, etc etc etc... My buddy and his wife buy all the pay-per-views and invite me over to watch, so I like makeing them a dvd that has highlights of fights that fighters on that nights card have been in. We watch it prior to the event on pay-per-view. They get a kick out of it, and I have fun making them. so, I would suggest you get big editing suite that will allow you to play, because trust me, once you start, you'll want to play. 

Anyway, I use the editing software to get the clip I want and render (save) it as an avi file. (that is the only format I have has any success with in making .gif files. Then again, I've only made 2 so far.

From here I use Ulead Gif Animator to turn it into the .gif file. You can download the program and use it for like 15 days free to see if you like it then its about $50.

Anyway, you will notice I didn't tell you what hardware or softwar to buy. Sorry, but that has to be your choice and I don't want to give you advice you will be un happy about later. Just do a little research and you should be ok. Hopefully Trey or one of the other guru's around here will read this and help you better than I did, cause as you can see by my Avatar, it works, but doesn't compare to Trey's work, so I clearly am not the best source of advice. But this should at least get ya looking in the right direction

Hope it helped, and sorry about being such a long winded SOB, that's just me, I can't help myself 

PS: Dude your Avatar still scares me ....LOL


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## BJJ Boy (Jan 21, 2007)

Yea, i wanna know to.


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## buo (Oct 15, 2006)

BigRandy said:


> I'm no expert on this by any stretch of the imagination, but I will throw a couple things out to help get ya started. With any luck, someone will see what I posted, correct me, and we both will be better for it
> 
> Anyway, first, to get the video from your source (VCR, CamCorder, Live TV/Cable/Sat feed, whatever, you need somekind of Video Capture Card. If you have firewire or USB2 you can use an external or you can get an internal card and intall it in an open pci slot. That is what I perfer, the internal card. Don't buy junk, or that is all you will end up with, is grainy looking junk. I have made some decent looking vids and I only use a mid level card, which I picked up for just under $100. Do your research and read all the reviews, your capture card is really the key to everything. Can't make a nice looking clip out of crappy looking video.
> 
> ...



Hey thanks for taking the time to write this. I just a this idea for a nice gif avatar. OK I'll do some research, hopefully I get something decent but not that pricy. Repped :thumbsup: 
Yes, soon enough I'll give Hoff and the puppies a vacation. I got to find a worthy replacement though, because those are pretty big shoes to fill.:laugh:


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## BJJ Boy (Jan 21, 2007)

I thought of a way! But you need a dvd player that can record. So what you do is play the vhs, the record it onto a dvd, then put the dvd onto youre computer and rip it off with Nero.


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