Advice please- Is DVD editing for me?

[kurnal]

Hi everybody
Just sitting at the edge wondering whether to take the plunge.

I provide training courses, using a laptop for powerpoint and an optoma ep737 projector. I also carry a vhs video and show a number of snippets of video through the projector ranging from 2 - 15 minutes each.

The laptop is a intel mobile 735 processor (1.7Mhz), radeon 128Mb 9700 graphics, 512 ram and 80 gig hard drive wiith firewire and usb2 ports, a dvd burner and is running XP SP2. It came with pre loaded Pinnacle instant cd/dvd version 8se.

The projector has all the usual inputs and a 9 pin D vga output.

Have been thinking about ditching the VHS and burning the videos to cd or DVD. Was thinking about buying a dazzle DV150 or similar till I read these forums- but I don't fancy a load of grief.

Is it possible to use the projector vga output to capture the video or will I still need the analogue to digital convertor?

Should I look for a unit with a firewire output or the USB standard model that seems to be most available in the shops?

If I go ahead and buy the package will my preloaded software be any good or should I remove it and use that in the package?

Any advice most gratefully received
Thanks
Kurnal

[Marc Peters]

How much video do you have and will you edit any of it?

If the answer to the above questions is "not a lot", and "no", then it will be a hell of a lot cheaper to pay someone to do it for you professionally - there's many, many places that offer this service.

Another method is to get a standalone DVD recorder - they're a lot cheaper than you'd think and you will be replacing your VCR at the same time!