Somewhere up in the attic or in the cellar in your house is a box full of VHS tapes. They have recordings of birthday parties, first born babies and home videos. There is probably also an original movie tape on Woodstock 1969, which you bought with a year’s pocket money. But who cares about them now that we have CDs and DVDs and digital cameras the size of your wallet. You haven't watched the movies in years but, unfortunately, the years and the weather are spoiling your precious family memories. Its time you converted those old VHS tapes to a digital form like DVD and gave them a fresh lease of life. Hey, your grandchildren may actually love to watch them.

VHS to DVD conversion requires two distinct steps. CAPTURE: The first is capturing the analog content of the VHS tape and getting it into your PC’s hard-disk. BURN: And next, burn the captured media file or files onto a DVD. There is also the optional EDIT step by which you can enhance the quality of the actual input content. Thus, there are two ways of converting tapes to DVD. For those of you who are not technologically inclined and are not really bothered about the quality of the digital version, there is the absolutely simple 4-step capture and burn process. Modern software has made this simple and possible in just a couple of mouse clicks. But for those of you who want to re-master your VHS collection and give them a sparkling shine, I suggest the capture – Edit – burn process. The editing is just a little more complicated but you will be proud of your handiwork. This is part 1 of a two part workshop in which we take a look at what you need for Capture.

Transferring VHS tapes to a digital format requires some special hardware. You will need a VCR (Video Cassette Recorder) to play the tape. You will also need a video capture card. This is a special kind of video card that allows a PC to collect video from analog sources like a TV or VCR. Most TV-Tuners, internal or USB have this capture functionality. Else, you can also purchase a standalone MPEG video capture card from your neighborhood PC hardware store, which can be plugged into the PCI slot of your motherboard. To view the list of Microsoft certified capture cards compatible with Windows XP, please visit: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/service_provider/hardware/.

Just like the hardware, capturing video and burning DVDs requires specific software also. Currently the desired quality is achieved from commercial applications only. I recommend Intervideo’s WinDVD Creator 2. It retails for $49.95 and a trial download is available at www.intervideo.com. You are probably familiar with their WinDVD application that is used for playing DVDs on a PC.