Transferring VHS to digital

[mharrington]

I have a collection of videotapes from way back when which have seen better days and I want to transfer them to digital. Not DVD, per se, but rather to another source, like, say the Cloud, so we can edit them ourselves. However, most of our tapes are old and our remaining VCR in the house has a habit of "eating" (meaning damaging) our tapes. I'm afraid of transferring the tapes myself, and many professionals, like at Costco, will simply transfer the tapes to DVD, leaving no means to edit them. I want to transfer the tapes, but I don't want to do so at the risk of losing them prematurely in the process, nor do I want to do it just to DVD. What can I do?

 

[Figgy1]

If you have enough tapes it may be worth getting something like https://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-Re...qid=1613530103&sprefix=vhs/dvd,aps,153&sr=8-5

we transferred ours to dvd and then to hard drives. My back ups have back ups. Plus I have a player and can still record on tape if I want

 

[mharrington]

If you have enough tapes it may be worth getting something like https://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-Re...qid=1613530103&sprefix=vhs/dvd,aps,153&sr=8-5 View attachment 532836 we transferred ours to dvd and then to hard drives. My back ups have back ups. Plus I have a player and can still record on tape if I want

Actually, that's the VCR we have, attached to a DVD and the ability to record onto DVD. The problem is, a VCR is still a VCR and all the problems that go along with it.

 

[Figgy1]

Actually, that's the VCR we have, attached to a DVD and the ability to record onto DVD. The problem is, a VCR is still a VCR and all the problems that go along with it.

Have you checked with places like Best Buy. They may not do it themselves but some Geek Squad people may know where or who to call

 

[wdwmagic]

I have a collection of videotapes from way back when which have seen better days and I want to transfer them to digital. Not DVD, per se, but rather to another source, like, say the Cloud, so we can edit them ourselves. However, most of our tapes are old and our remaining VCR in the house has a habit of "eating" (meaning damaging) our tapes. I'm afraid of transferring the tapes myself, and many professionals, like at Costco, will simply transfer the tapes to DVD, leaving no means to edit them. I want to transfer the tapes, but I don't want to do so at the risk of losing them prematurely in the process, nor do I want to do it just to DVD. What can I do?

If you have them transferred to DVD you can always rip the video from the DVD and then upload the to the cloud for storage or use the files to edit into something.

use something like https://handbrake.fr

 

[Screamface]

I did it years ago. I had a Canopus ADVC analogue to digital box which was placed between the VHS and the PC. It used Firewire or some other long-gone input but it worked well. The box had all sorts of image enhancing features which were best to ignore, but it did improve the image output. The VCR would have weird frame flicker which it got rid of when I tried capturing directly on a capture card. So the box improved the output.

I used an SVHS player to output to the PC. These days I would capture at double the native resolution of VHS. With no image enhancement beyond the improved signal. Then do image enhancement in Premier or Vegas.

Audio was a problem. In the editing program, I cleaned up lots of issues. Edited out various unwanted sounds. Then exported the final audio to an external program to clear up noise and it worked really well.

I'd definitely look for a more modern equivalent of the box I used. Although I'd honestly be fine using an old one with an adaptor for my PC.

 

[erasure fan1]

I have a collection of videotapes from way back when which have seen better days and I want to transfer them to digital. Not DVD, per se, but rather to another source, like, say the Cloud, so we can edit them ourselves. However, most of our tapes are old and our remaining VCR in the house has a habit of "eating" (meaning damaging) our tapes. I'm afraid of transferring the tapes myself, and many professionals, like at Costco, will simply transfer the tapes to DVD, leaving no means to edit them. I want to transfer the tapes, but I don't want to do so at the risk of losing them prematurely in the process, nor do I want to do it just to DVD. What can I do?

I keep hearing commercials for a company called legacy box. They say they can take all of your old media and digitize it. It's a mail in service so you could check them out.

 

[mharrington]

I keep hearing commercials for a company called legacy box. They say they can take all of your old media and digitize it. It's a mail in service so you could check them out.

I've heard of Legacy Box, but they charge only for two hours of film (about $20 or $30 if I remember correctly), and we have more than 200 hours. Plus, it's located in Chattanooga, too far from where I live.

 

[erasure fan1]

Right now the commercials say $40 off, so I'm guessing they have other packages. It sounds like a mail away service so you don't need to actually go there. For some I can see sending your only videos through the mail troublesome. But it could be worth a shot, especially if you break it up into different orders.