specific questions from clueless person

[Tempo Gain]

i have two things i want to do:

record home movies from vhs to disk

record music live from mixer to cdr

i have a computer (duh) with crappy soundcard and no videocard. i was hoping to go for a tabletop unit for simplicity but this doesn't seem to be a real option at this time (anything in the works there?) any recs on the best way to go? any help is appreciated.

[SA]

I use an ATI AIW 9600 Pro to do the VHS to digital conversion. Although I would suggest buying seperate Capture device if you can swing it. The AIW does an OK job, but sepearate is better.

Since your only capturing VHS you could get away with low end Dazzle USB capture device (~$80). 320x240 resolution wouldn't really degrade VHS by much, but 640 x 480 is standard TV resolution. Just try to capture in the format that you will be creating the disc with(i.e. DVD quality is 720 x 480 MPEG2, Video CD is 352x240 MPEG1. That will save you rendering time when you create your disc. I think you can download a trial of Adobe Premiere elements. I use Pinnacle studio, it's OK. I've also tried Ulead and Sony Screen Blast which are both tolerable. Nero comes with a capture and authoring tool as well.

To record your live music. Just bring a miniplug into your "Line in" from the headphone output on the mixer. Record with any software (i.e. Goldwave,, Audacity). You'll have to play with the levels to get them right. But it'll be sufficient as long as your not shooting for studio quality.