Now that you have the VCR plugged into the Canopus ADVC 110 plugged into the Firewire port of your computer, what next?

You need a software program to capture, i.e. record, the video you're about to feed into it. Your PC may have come installed with Windows Movie Maker, which has all kinds of neat video effects you can use. However Movie Maker only records in a format called AVI, which is okay, but to create a DVD we need MPEG quality, and Windows Movie Maker doesn't deal in MPEG, at least not the version bundled with your computer. (EDIT: Maybe it does. It has a lot of settings. Okay, I don't know every detail, I'm just learning myself.) (EDIT 2: I have since learned that AVI is higher quality than MPEG, and easier to edit in. Capture your video and edit in AVI, and then let your DVD creation program handle changing it to DVD MPEG quality.)

Your computer may also have come with a program called Roxio Creator Basic v. 9. Creator Basic works in MPEG and was designed for DVD making. If you uninstalled it for some reason and need to put it back on your computer you may be headed for an incredible speed bump: "The certificate file is missing or has been corrupted. Please re-install." All the uninstalling and reinstalling in the world isn't going to get you around this. Also, you may find directions on how to deal with this in Vista, but what if you're dealing in XP? Here's what you do in XP. First go to Start -> My Computer -> Tools dropdown menu at top -> Folder options -> View -> Select "View hidden files" and click "OK." Now, go to Start -> My Computer -> C: -> Documents and Settings -> All Users -> Application Data -> Sonic -> Delete that Sarlicense9 file! Reopen your Creator Basic v. 9 and suddenly, it miraculously works!

You can capture your video with Creator Basic, but I really prefer another program called ArcSoft Showbiz. ArcSoft Showbiz lets you edit the video on a timeline or by a storyboard. I'm not sure this is in production anymore but you can find it...around. Use Google, wink wink.

Okay, so now you've got your hardware plugged in and your Roxio Creator or ArcSoft software up and running, with the inputs set to find your external video source. Hopefully you're seeing some picture. Now, the video may be out of sync with the audio. This is because your videotape has tracks for picture and sound, and another for time code. The time code is what the Canopus is using to lock onto your picture and sound to keep them in harmony. However if you started the tape in the middle or if there's a break in the time code somewhere, the Canopus is going to lose track and we get the karate movie effect. This can usually be fixed by rewinding the tape to the beginning and ejecting it and reinserting it. Now the Canopus ADVC should lock on and stay there. Except...

As your video is capturing, it will hit spots where you hit "stop" on your camcorder or VCR and the time code is broken. This may throw your Canopus and PC for a loop, and you'll get a blank screen and "no input detected." You'll have to rewind the tape to catch what you missed and hit the capture button in your software again. Yes, this is a pain in the nuts, but you shouldn't have to do it too many times, and this is the price you pay for immortality.

After you've hit "capture" in your software, you may panic that there's no sound, or that you're hearing weird clicking noises. Fear not, this is supposed to happen, and your end audio product should turn out fine.

Now that you've got your PC loaded up with MPEG files, it's time to edit and prepare it to go to DVD. Tune in tomorrow.