A good tv tuner

[horndude]

anything burned to dvd wont be "dvd" quality, with a regular TV signal its basically about the same as VHS or slightly better, it will be ok though

helps if you keep the bitrate high and deinterlace the stream, most TV tuners put out an interlaced stream, at least mine does at 60fps

software makes a difference too, many are limited by the software not the hardware, many tuners can do a little better than the typical windows software will let them

 

[B-rock]

I know they aren't going to be DVD quality, but I have a 27" TV and I want to be able to watch it on there after I edit out the commercials. So, I guess what I'm wondering is if I use Windows Movie maker to edit it will it be about as good quality as if i recored it with a VCR or better than that?

 

[horndude]

have no clue, I dont use windows, should be ok I would think

 

[B-rock]

What programs do you use? And how much do they cost?

 

[horndude]

they dont cost anything

I use mplayer and mencoder for the most part

to make mpeg's for dvd's I use mplayer, mpeg2enc, ffmpeg, and mplex

to author dvd's and convert mpeg's to vob's I use varsha

Doing video on a computer gets a little complicated, there's a fair anount you have to know so you can understand exactly what does what and how it will turn out, also takes alot of CPU power to do things quickly Takes some experimenting too, there's alot of options and many ways sometimes to arrive with the same result, there's a whole bunch of different software tools that will work, some are better than others at certain things.