hi friends, i have some important video cassets which i want to convert in to digital format. so pls tell me what hardware i should use to connect, the VCR to notebook for best perfomance. THANKS Hello!

Well you'll need a card that is capable of doing video capture. "Video In," or sometimes called VIVO.

BTW, what's your notebook's brand and model? Im not sure but I think your manufacturer will have some kind of documentation or recommendation regarding video capture...A better option (imo) is to connect your VCR to a stand alone DVD recorder then rip the DVD's to your laptop after.

If you record directly to your laptop your going to be USING up your laptops resources (video recording TAKES up CPU/memory) & you will basically be just watching/waiting for it to finish.

But, if you want to record directly to your laptop, like Jerry said you need to find out if your laptop has 'video in'. If it doesn't, instead of buying an expensive video card you could try something like a USB video capture device like these.

I've never TRIED them but that's the route I'd take if the DVD recorder option was out.