Assistance, please?

[queenbarwench]

I'm doing a little research project for my dad into current software and hardware for video editing. So I thought the best place to start would be with the vidders on my flist. All information, advice, links, etc. gratefully accepted.

I'd like to know what's cutting-edge, what's easy (or hard) to use, minimum hardware requirements, best tools for VHS-to-dvd capture, software cost vs usefulness, any other tips and tricks you think are worth telling me about. And if you know someone who knows someone who knows something, please do direct them here.

This project relates to CCTV footage and how it travels from street to police to courtroom, so I'm not looking for fancy special effects or how to make the best fanvid evar. But you vidders will have learned a load of practical skills in pursuit of your art, and I'd like to take advantage of your expertise.

I'm directing all comments for this to DW, so I can have them in one place.

Comments

[paraka]

So I've been meaning to reply to this for a while, but keep forgetting when I'm at home, and didn't really want to do it at work since I don't have program names, but whatever, I'm doing it now. :P

It's really not hard to capture video from VHS, but you tend to need at least some level of special equipment to do it. I have a little box from Pinnacle Studios. It has analogue connections (the little yellow, red, and white cords) that connect to the VCR and a little box, and the box has a USB cord attached to it that I then attach to my computer. It will basically come out at the same quality as whatever you see on TV, so not generally amazing, and the files can be quite large, but it gets the job done. The box that I got came with one of Pinnacle's video editing software programs as well. I've never tried to do a serious vid in the program, but it definitely has everything you need to get a vid produced.

The only thing you need in addition to what came with the little box (it ended up costing me about $80 Canadian, if I remember correctly) was another program to help compress the file afterwards, just because a single 40 minute episode could be upwards of 10GBs uncompressed.

However, if you're dad is going to be burning his results onto a DVD, the program probably comes with something (I can't remember off the top of my head, but exporting to a DVD is pretty standard for these kinds of programs) to export straight to DVD which would take care of any compression needed.

Hope that was helpful, and not too late.

[paraka]

*pokes around*
This looks like a newer (and slightly more expensive) version of the box that I have.

[queenbarwench]

Thanks! Pinnacle was a name I'd heard, so I'll be checking them out more thoroughly.