This morning my swim coach took some underwater video of my stoke. He’s gone through it with me and given me some things to work on.
The video is currently VHS, but I’m wondering if there is a way to convert it to some sort of digital file, host it, and then post a link so that forum viewers can have a look. I have server space that I don’t know how to access, and no technical know-how. Any help would be appreciated.
ok - if all you have is vhs, you’ll need to either get an analog to digital convertor (like a dazzle dv bridge - although not my favorite) and also need some editing software on your computer. The dazzle requires a firewire port on your machine and you need to make sure whatever software you use is compatible with whatever dv bridge you use. Now, you can also use some dv cameras as a bridge or record from the vcr to the camera and then import from the camera. if you dont already have a camera or cant borrow one - things could get into the few hundred dollar range -
free media hosting here - http://www.ourmedia.org/
You would need some type video capture card in your computer.
If you are only doing this once, it wouldn’t be worth the investment. I would just look in the phone book or mail-order and take/send the VHS to them and they will convert it to whatever format you want. (DVD, Video-CD, etc.)
Once you have it in digital format, you will notice that the file size is huge. Too large to stream over the net in most cases. So, you’ll need to edit it to reduce the size and quality to an acceptable size and qaulity. Its a compromise. You can do that with free software available with Windows XP called Windows Movie Maker. After that, just host the file on a web page as a link and when people click it, they can either watch it directly or download it. If you want streaming video, it gets complicated.
Good luck.
If you’re not in a rush you can mail me the tape and I’ll convert it for you, throw it on CD-ROM and mail it back to you…
if you don’t take terry up on his offer (which is very generous), you can get a digital video camera that has RCA inputs (with yellow, red, and white ends) or that has a cable that will run RCAs into some other kind of input. put the tape in a vcr, connect the output of of the vcr to the input of the camera, hit play on the vcr and record on the camera. this makes it digital. then you have to capture it to a computer.
you can use quicktime pro or something to make it okay for the web. i don’t know about hosting.