PAL Dilemna

[Floppyman]

Hi all,

I've got a bit of a problem on my hands. My parents own 20 to 30 PAL VHS tapes (from Germany). My initial thought was to capture the video off all of them and then burn it onto DVD (for longetivity reasons, plus the DVD player they own will play all regions and has a PAL to NTSC converter). What would be the best and cheapest way to capture all these tapes onto my computer so I can burn them onto DVD? Thanks in advance.

[SonicVanguard]

Playing back those VHS tapes on a NTSC deck will result in a b&w picture with muffled sound. If you don't have a PAL VHS deck and don't have access to one, just find a local video company that can do the conversion. It's usually $10 or so per tape - if the tapes are inportant, you're parents will pay the $$$.

Sort of ironic, we jsut got rid of our PAL VHS deck last month. Or I would have been happy to do the conversion for you.

Dave.

[Floppyman]

Thanks Sonic. How much does a PAL VHS deck cost nowadays? Thanks again.

[SonicVanguard]

Not cheap if you can find them around here. And shipping from Europe isn't cheap. Does your college have a PAL deck you could use?

For the record, we had a Samsung SV-5000W in the studio. As I recall, we paid around $500 for it and sold it for arond $300.

Dave.

[RJ]

How do they watch the tapes, then ? You can use the VCR that they use to play these tapes back.

Otherwise, since I know you travel over here often (or maybe know someone who comes over here soon), you could give me the tapes and I do the copying to DVD for you.

RJ