Burnin’ Some Discs
My new :DVD: burner came in yesterday and I hooked it up last night. I was able to burn an :MP3: disc for use in my new car stereo and it works great. Eleven albums on a single disc… that rocks!
I haven’t tried any DVD burning yet simply due to the fact that the only disc I have is the single DVD+R disc that came with the drive. I need to get some other types for testing before I really go at that.
I’m really interested in transfering a bunch of recordings from my VHS collection into a digital format (including a bunch of episodes of Thunderbirds 2086… yes, I’m a dork). A lot of the tapes are really old and the quality is quickly deteriorating, so I don’t want to lose them. With the DVD burner I’ll be able to put them onto DVD for archiving and viewing. Unfortunately, I don’t have any sort of way to input them into my computer (my old computer does have a video card with video in, but that won’t help me here), so now I’m looking at video capture cards.
Right now, the top two contenders on my list are the Hauppauge Win-TV PVR250 and PVR350—the chief difference being that the 350 has video out as well as FM radio input. The video out on the 350 would be nice, but I’m not sure that it’s worth the ~$50 premium that card commands. I’ll probably check a couple of stores on the way home and see if they have anything good.
Update: I should also mention that one of the reasons I’m looking at the Hauppauge cards is that they’re compatible with programs such as SnapStream, a TiVo-like program for your computer. Hey, I might as well think about future possibilities, right?
Posted Tuesday October 14, 2003 in Real Life by Chris Curtis
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Well, I ended up purchasing the PVR250 at my local Fry’s store. I would have liked the video out on the 350, but Fry’s didn’t have it and I don’t know that it would have been worth an extra $50 anyway.
Besides, I think my video card may have a video out on it. At least, that middle connector there looks suspiciously like an S-video connector…
Hmm, looking at the ATI site, it appears that the connector in question may be a “YPrPb component output”. The ShopATI part of the site also lists a S-video to Composite adapter, so maybe it is S-video after all. I may be forced to contact ATI since my Dell doesn’t appear to have shipped with the information I need.
By Chris Curtis on October 14, 2003 at 10:38pm link