I am looking for suggestions for software to allow me to transfer my home movies (VHS) to my PC's hard drive. To do this I am using a ATI AIW 9800 Pro card. Please don't suggest I buy a recordable DVD unit (or something similar) or USB/Firewire capture boxes ... etc because that is not an option at the moment. I have tried a few programs so far and a couple that aren't too bad are Nero and Cyberlink Power Director 6. Has anyone had any favourable experiences transferring their home videos? Any tips or suggestions? Thanks for taking the time to read my question.

I just looked up your GFX card it doesn't appear to have a Video Input .... so your limited in this aspect.

Previously I have used TV Tuner cards ( analogue and digital ) which have S-VHS Inputs in conjunction with Vritual Dub.

It records the content in AVI format and I used the HuffyUV codec ( as it was free ) but then decided to purchase the PIC Video MJpeg codec for this which allowed me to reduce the size of the captured content onto my HDD.

With Virtual Dub you can apply various filters to clean up the picture and additional controls ie HSV for fine turning.

Once you have edited the content, you can use pretty much any decent video convertor application to make a DVD.

BTW

If you are attempting to use a commercial movie onto your HDD it will be protected by MacroVision, if you use Virtual Dub you shouldn't have a problem with this.

Will you be viewing with PC or do you wish to transfer to DVD? Hook up s-video cable or composite RCA cables to capture card and transfer with
WMM and it'll save as .wmv file, and play .....If you want DVD, use something like DVDFlick or Super to convert .wmv file to dvd .

My video card does indeed have s-video as well as composite hookups. I am limited by my VCR which only has composite connections. I will be converting the transfered video to DVD eventually. I just want to get the video on the HD first - then I can edit it.

Well there you go, hookup your composite RCA's and use Windows Movie Maker(WMM) to transfer to PC as .wmv file.........I believe you can use VLC media player to transfer/capture form VCR,not sure as I haven't tried it...

If I may...
I had similar problems few years ago and I bought Asus TV tuner capture card (s-video in RCA in). And after a while I sold it.
Problems: even if I choose mpeg2 standard, videobitrate 8-10,PCM...video qualiti is always below my expectiation. video and audio doesn`t mach, color quality is poor, sharpnes so-so...
I tried other video standrads (Xvid, divX, VCD, SVCD...) big dissapointment!
I solve the problem wih home DVD rec. with HDD!! connect VHS, satelite tuner, camcorder...divide, erase parts in your movie, join parts.. etc, etc - very satisfied!!

Glad you solved your prob quazar, however the OP stated this,

"Please don't suggest I buy a recordable DVD unit (or something similar) or USB/Firewire capture boxes ... etc because that is not an option at the moment."

have a nice satisfying day!
T.

I`m trying to tell that he might visit his friend and try there, and see for your self how much trouble is to capture and edit video material from VHS or any other source. Then, try to do the same thnig with standalone DVDrec (with HDD) and then he`ll decide!

Well I managed to get it all done. I used my ATI capture card (9800 Pro) with VirtualDub.

Thanks for all your suggestions.

You should visit www.videohelp.com, and search the forums for ati stuff. There is a guy there named lordsmurf, who has some very good knowledge on working with ati cards..