Orson Welles & Buster Keaton

[Roger Ryan]

To witness another mighty stag brought down by jackals, read BUSTER KEATON: THE MAN WHO WOULDN'T LIE DOWN by Tom Dardis, which details the descending career arc of the Great Stone Face, from his triumph on THE GENERAL in 1927 to the coming of sound and MGM's inexplicable decision to relegate Keaton to the role of second banana for Jimmy Durante. Keaton was tagged as a silent film director who couldn't make the leap to sound pictures, except as an actor.

There's a superb documentary on Keaton's downfall included in the recent Turner triple feature DVD release of "The Cameraman", "Spite Marriage" and "Free & Easy". It is perhaps the only example of a DVD extra informing the viewer why the movies they just purchased are inferior to the artist's other work! Of course, despite studio meddling, "The Cameraman" still ranks as one of Keaton's best features.

[jaime marzol]

rkadin, i bet that is how wellesfan put my vhs tapes on dvd. he said something about usb. i'm not familiar with that. i have a lot of other vhs tapes i don't want to have to capture, encode, and re-export, i just want them on dvd as is. mydvd has a feature that records in real time right to dvd, but this feature has never found the signal from my capture card. i bet it will find a usb signal.

it captures mpg2? that is fabulous.

[jaime marzol]

i loved the camera man. it's my second favorite keaton after the general.

[Orson&Jazz]

WOW!! I haven't been around here lately, and by the looks of it, I am bombarded by an impressive amount of information. This is why I adore this message board; every member here really knows their stuff!

I have been poking around for a capture card. A capture card IS expensive. Too me it is. I've been trying to get my more computer savvy pals to practically show me how to go about it, cheaply, but it still amazes me how hard it seems to transfer from VHS to DVD. I am still overwhelmed. I am practically just a computer monkey that hunts and pecks, but going from that to transferring seems like a MAJOR step up the ladder!

I need to re-read everything that has been posted so far. And all contributions are greatly appreciated. I agree that this should be a seperate thread all on it's own. This is serious technical education.

As for Keaton, I have a soft spot for The Cameraman as well. It is second to The General, which I found to be incredibly amazing! And for the others that are with the Turner collection, I don't think I will be viewing Free & Easy anytime soon. That film does not show off the multitude of talents that I know Keaton possessed.

[jaime marzol]

a lot of things got cleared up. get a tv tunner card, i was told about $100. then you get software that records live to dvd. almost all dvd drag and drop software have that feature. that is all you need to turn your vhs tapes into dvd. you plug your vhs to tuner card, press play on vhs, press record on dvd software. that is it.

the rest of that info is if you want to make stuff out of what you put in your comp.

also, dvd recorders are at walmart for 99 bucks.

[jaime marzol]

those of you that are taking stills, get a software called TOPAZ. it's $38 i think. you can rip dvd to hard drive. TOPAZ opens the vob files and plays them allowing you to take high quality stills. in most instances, very high quality. it also opens avi files, and mpg files to take stills from.