Wetransfer is a good one
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Decent graphics tablets without breaking the bank? I’m messing around with Illustrator and Photoshop at work and want to get one to fiddle around with without costing me a fortune
I did one of those ‘go into the loft for something and come down with something else’ things yesterday and dragged out a box of Mini DV tapes with a couple of camcorders.
Next, of course, is I want to convert them to a more friendly format.
The options I see are…
Try and get the old EasyCAP USB device I have working with Windows 11.
Install XP on an old laptop and try the EasyCAP.
Pay someone to do it.
Pick up an old laptop with a Firewire port.
Buy one of those devices I’ve seen that you connect a source to and record direct.
Has anyone else done this, or are still using tapes, that can offer any wise words?
Thank you! 
I paid someone to convert a load of old VHS, cost a fair bit but they hadn’t bothered checking their video for best results and I know I could’ve got a better cap
Think I got a cheap usb cap card on eBay for like 12 quid or something a while back, works great. Would probably have done it myself but fuck going through 20 hours of tapes myself.
Tl;Dr: do it yourself, takes time, best results.
Pay someone, variable results quick but costs money.
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Not a Mac user so pardon ignorance, but could you not get an older Macbook that has a FireWire port or has a Thunderbolt connection, then use the FireWire to Thunderbolt converter they use?
Never used one of those converters that go via USB myself, but cool to see @Mark mention it. I always remember people getting duped by buying them without realizing they need specific software yonks ago? I think it’s due to the connection speed and differences in how USB and FireWire works, meaning you’d need to have the software to configure that. I could be talking absolute guff here, though.
But yes, do it yourself is possible!
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Thank you @Mark & @Pedromayn.
The EasyCAP USB device I mentioned above is one of those USB capture cards that I picked up several years back…
…and I’ve just managed to install the drivers for it on my Windows 11 laptop.
I’ll find some suitable software and give that a go.
Thanks again.
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Iirc the one I got had ancient drivers that worked with windows 10 and you could just cap it with whatever built in windows software there was for viewing it. Was super basic but did the job. Sorry I can’t be more specific but I seem to remember it was dead easy and way less hassle than I thought it’d be
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Good.
Fast.
Cheap.
Pick 2.
A Firewire PCI card like this should work if you have a tower. It won’t work on a laptop.
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Thanks Ciaran.
I’ve still got a PCI (& a PCMCIA) firewire card but haven’t had anything to plug either of them into for a few years.
I did a few test captures with my DV camcorder, EasyCAP and Virtualdub 2 and they are ‘OK’ but I need to learn about deinterlacing to get rid of some horizontal lines when things move.
Handbrake is a good tool to use, can send over my export settings on that so you can save as a preset and do as a big boi chunk, if needs be 
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Is burning DVDs actually complicated for what seems like a simple task or am I just dumb?
Recently ended up with an old Mac that has a disk drive and it runs iTunes instead of Apple Music.
I’ve been playing around trying to burn copies of my friends upcoming video but I’m not having any luck via the iTunes burner (which is literally just drag and drop). I’ve exported it in MPEG2-DVD format (PAL) and I can burn it to disk via iTunes, and it plays via the disk on desktop, but doesn’t play in a DVD player (or on my Xbox at least).
Any ideas?
There used to be a piece of software called iDVD which was specifically for DVD authoring and bundled with OSX
Your mac might still have it on it if it has a disk drive, but if not, perhaps knowing the name will give you a headstart for googling at least.
Anyone used email marketing software Insider before?
Does anyone use a BitTorrent client for Mac (for totally legal purposes)? I’m struggling to find one that doesn’t seem sketchy that works on OS Ventura. The disk image for Transmission wouldn’t open and neither would the one for qbittorrent, even after verifying the dmg and allowing permissions. Vuze seems sketchy these days so don’t want to use that and BitTorrent doesn’t work with this latest OS.
Does that sound like an issue on my end somewhere? Can anyone recommend anything else?
qBitTorrent
Tried this but same problem, couldn’t open the dmg file. I allowed permissions from outside developers and verified the disk image but it still wouldn’t let me open it
utorrent?
Don’t double click.
Do the two finger click and select open. It will then give you the option to run it.
Thanks. Did a software update and it worked.
I don’t know what any of the crash report means, but my iMac started doing this before it died.
It lasted about 6 months before the hard drive completely went and I got round it by not turning it off, ever.
