Karaoke Forums

I have a bunch of Laser discs just laying around and would like to convert them into a digital format. Does anyone know if this is possible? Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Sure it is. You just need a video capture card and a laserdisc player (obviously). Then convert to a video file that your hosting software will read (not too many will), unless you are just using this for home, then you could just use Media Player or something of the likes. Lastly, you need time - it will need to be done in 'real time' for ripping - basically hit play on the player, start the recording, when the song is done, stop the recording - stop the player (if it doesn't automatically stop), manually name each track and repeat for the next track - but once done, it's done, takes about 1 hour per disc side. I've been working on my collection (approx 100 discs) for the last month and a half, still have about 10 to go then i'm done.

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Thanks for the tips. I have about 100 of them too. What kind of video capture card and laser disc player do I need? I only have the old Pioneer karaoke laser disc player. What software would you recommend?

Well you have the right laserdisc player, since it's a Pioneer you can set it in karaoke mode to stop after each song so you don't have to worry about that.
The program I use is called Snappysoft by Monsoon
http://www.monsoon-mm.com/estore.html
Video capture card can be anything as well, mine actually came stock in the computer. But anything should work, if you have a PC, it might be worth it to get an internal card if you have an available slot, otherwise a USB 2 device should work.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... CatId=1428

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Just to add something. Not only it's real time capture of the files, you will spend a lot of time putting each song as a separate file. Unless you are sitting at the computer the entire time it's recording and capture each chapter separately, it may be easy just to capture the entire one side of the disc and then separate out each song as a file. Either case, it takes a lot of time to get it done. It took me a week to get about 50 discs in to digital format from LDs.

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Seize the day and SING!!!

Just out of curiousity... your Video Capture Card is that the same as a Graphics Card? Do you connect using red/white/yellow RCA?

Another question... what is the audio quality? Can you play these at gigs and still receive quality sound?

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---wallyd

No a graphics (output) card is no the same a s a Video capture card (input).

The quality of the audio will all depend on the quality the original LD & player, quality of capture card, and what quality (bitrate) you capture the audio at.


I have a plextor video caputer USB device....
http://www.bluedogink.com/plextor-conve ... order.html

Used it to convert old VHS/Home movies to AVIs on the computer. It did a decent job. I suppose if I would have captured a LD, the quality wold be good enough to use at pro shows.

I ripped my discs to DVD quality both in video & audio. Play and sound/look great in the plasma and PA system.

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I could use a device I bought to record shows from my DVR player. It is Dazzle DVD Recorder plus. Basically, you can input RCAs or S-Video into it and record it on your computer via USB in many different formats. I love it. It was like $50, but for what I have used it for, it has been well worth it!

If you are looking for screen capture capabilities, MS Expression Encoder is free on the MS website.