I have two questions for you, almighty T&C:

 

1. Is it possible to 'reverse-engineer' an HDMI connection from a TV to a laptop to digitally record something that's on a VHS tape? ie I have a VCR attached to a TV and I can hook up a laptop with an HDMI cable. Is there a [preferably free] method that I can use to digitize my lovely analog, both images and sound? Is this possible in other ways not necessarily involving the HDMI but also not involving lots of money?

 

2. I have an Acer Aspire 5560 laptop and it has a slightly textured case. I want to get a vinyl decal and put it on it but I was wondering how well it would stick... pic of top of case from newegg That's what it looks like, wondering if anyone has any experience with sticking things to Acers because I recall that most of the newer ones are like this.

 

Thanks.

1) Is fairly easy to do, you just need to get something like this:

http://www.amazon.co...d/dp/B0011N9QNC

 

Which will let you run the output from a VHS directly into your computer, from there you can use something like windows movie maker or w/e to capture video from the device set that going on capture then start the VHS playing and let it run through. Then you can obviousl trim any blank space off start and end and do w/e you like with it.

 

2) Should work fine, I mean if you feel a macbook they have a sort of grainy texture to their surface and you get heaps of decals for them that work just fine, in fact some texture probably helps things stick better as there'll be friction.

With this you get what you pay for (for 1.) but if you know someone that has a capture card like that, you can ask them. I've done it for people that needed to do some similar things using my hauppauge hd pvr, which even if it isn't in hd, will give a better picture. Because of the price though, if you don't have any friends with a capture card already, you can go with the option already provided by Sy_Accursed.