(meteorobs) All night video recording question

[Thomas Ashcraft]

I am setting up a video meteor/fireball recording system and need some 
advice.

Right now I am operating a HiCam HB-710E video camera with an allsky 
fisheye lens and I am running the video camera signal into a VCR which 
makes an all night recording onto VHS tape. The system works quite well 
for capturing fireballs. ( I am also feeding audio from a short wave 
radio into the VCR recorder for WWV timing and on the second stereo 
audio channel of vhs tape I have a forward scatter radio signal coming 
in from an ICOM pcr1000 radio. )  I am capturing great meteor specimens 
to vhs tape but am having a problem inputting the vhs specimens into my 
pc to make shareable movie files. I purchased an ATI video capture card 
but the video running into my Dell pc, XP, 1.8 gHz PIIII, Windows Media 
Encoder 9 only record at about 1 frame per second which makes a poor 
quality movie. So I am sort of stuck in my process.

What I would like to do is forget about the VCR altogether and instead 
run the video from the camera into a computer for an all night, 8 or 10 
hour digital video recording, and then extract the significant fireball 
specimens and make movie files at high quality.

Do people do this?   Any advice is welcome and please feel free to 
contact me off-list if you like.

I am thanking you in advance.

Clear skies,
Thomas Ashcraft
ashcraft ( at ) heliotown.com