Video to PC to DVD

As someone possibly even less technical than you are, I would use a VCR/DVD burner and skip the computer all together. That's what I am doing with all my old exercise tapes. But here's the rub: How much time and work will it take for you to get results you are happy with? You gotta think: 88 episodes, (that is, if you even have them all), I am guessing that a line in to the computer would be recorded in real time, that would be, minus commercials, 66 hours of material, otherwise a total of 88 hours. And if you are missing episodes, as I am, you would have gone through some expense, and a huge time investment for a mediocre results. Minimum wage in California, where I live, is $6.75 an hour. That would mean, if you were to pay yourself to just record the tapes onto the computer, you would owe yourself $445.50, assuming the commercials are already gone. Were you wanting to do additional editing in the computer? Add about 20 more hours and another $135 worth of your time to that. Is this project really worth $580.50 of your time?

I have 70 episodes of KFTLC on tape, caught from TNT reruns, and I edited the commercials out going tape to tape between two VCR machines. (There's my time investment.) But, I am still left with these episodes A) on videotape, B) Out of order, and C) still about 18 episodes short of having the entire series. I would not even consider converting them to DVD! I am planning on buying the DVD set.

About 2 years ago, I bought the Vampire / Mayfair Witch Chronicles on audio book unabridged from a EBay seller. When I got them, the tracks were 45 minutes long, sometimes 90 minutes, just as they were recorded from the Library of Congress cassette tapes. That's not convenient for the player I use, and I decided to edit them down. Being a fastidious sort of person, I was editing the tracks so as to start in between paragraphs, at beginning of every chapter, and trying to place important ideas within single tracks. It took me 12 hours to edit The Witching Hour, only to lose it when my operating system crashed. From now on, I will set the editor to autochop at set time intervals. I am proud of the job I did the first time, but it's not worth it to me to spend another 12 hours to edit a book I'll only listen to once in a blue moon. Think about it.

But if you insist, the techies will need a little more information. What operating system are you using? How fast is your computer, and how much RAM do you have? Does your computer have a DVD burner? What sort of DVD programs are on your computer now? Muvee, WinDVD? You said maybe later burn them to DVD, so how much hard drive space do you have now? What video card do you have? What were your planning to use to play the videotapes: a VCR or an old videocam? Does it and your computer have compatible ports? What is the maximum amout you would be willing to spend for equipment and software?

It sounds like this will be quite a learning experience for you! Good Luck.