VHS to Mac using only RCA+USB cable, [TOS #6: moved from Digital A/V News] Options

[yoe91]

Hey guys,
I live in Qatar, and I found this cable with USB on one end, and RCA on the other. It's tough to find stuff that's too specific here, and ordering online is a huge hassle. I really need to get rid of a bunch of tapes and the VCR itself quick...

Question:
Can I at least view (and then possibly record/digitalize) those VHS tapes on my Mac through that cable ? There has to be a way...I mean to connect my TV to the VCR, all I need is double RCA.
PLEASE help, this would mean the world to me, there's a bunch of rare NBA stuff and old nostalgic stuff I NEED to conserve somehow, before I need to throw them out coz I'm moving in like a few weeks...

THANKS A LOT !! Would mean the world to me !!

P.S.: worst case I can do PC, but I'm using a Mac right now.

[Fandango]

I live in Qatar, and I found this cable with USB on one end, and RCA on the other.

Can you be more specific? edit: I mean about the cable, not about living in Qatar...

This post has been edited by Fandango: Feb 19 2013, 02:32

[DVDdoug]

It requires more than just a "cable"...

I found this cable with USB on one end, and RCA on the other.

Make sure one of those RCA connectors is for video... Otherwise, it could be a USB soundcard...



What you are looking for is a "video capture device". The EZCAP is popular, inexpensive, and has a good reputation. But, apparently it only works on Windows computers. There are all kinds of video capture devices, and they can get much more expensive. There are also some cheap ones with similar names to EZCAP (such as EazyCap), but they don't have a good reputation.

If you have a MiniDV camera, many times these have composite video & audio inputs, and a firewire output, and these can sometimes be used as a capture device in "pass-thru" mode, if you have a computer with a firewire input.

[db1989]

How exactly is this “Digital A/V News”? Moved.

[yoe91]

I live in Qatar, and I found this cable with USB on one end, and RCA on the other.

Can you be more specific? edit: I mean about the cable, not about living in Qatar...

hehe...well that's it ! USB on one end, and then RCA on the other end. That's it, just a wire with these two ends, no adapter on it, nothin...

Thanks for the reply guys ! Sorry for not being in the right forum apparently...not sure where to put this...

So nobody knows of a way with just that cable I have ??....
thx.

[slks]

At the very least you would need some kind of ADC in the chain to convert the *analog* signal coming from a VCR to the *digital* signal necessary to communicate over the computer's USB interface. That's not even counting any format conversions you're going to need to do once a digital signal actually gets to the computer.

I'm not sure what the cable you found is intended for, but a piece of wire wrapped in plastic isn't going to do analog-to-digital conversion. Either there is some extra hardware contained within the cable (unlikely by your description), or, it was intended to connect a video capture device. If you're lucky maybe you can find the video capture device you need at the same place you found the cable.

Then, once the hardware is found, you can start hunting for the device drivers. Unless you can find the disc those came on too