Vhs to digital converter

[kurzonmorris]

My wife has a bunch of rare vhs and cassettes she wants digitising as they getting old. What hardware is best? 

 

From my searches they all seem variations on a theme and are basicly the same but software compatability seems a problem. I don't want to buy something and then regret it because a different device has better video recording.

 

What would people recommend?

[seanondemand]

I don't have any hardware, because what I recommend would be paying somebody to do the digitizing - when my folks wanted some stuff digitized, the amount of money on hardware (buying it, and then getting rid of it when I was done) and time I'd have to spend on it just wasn't worth it.

[emosun]

you literally only need a composite capture device which is very common. put the tapes in a vcr and capture them to a pc , job done.

[dilpickle]

If you want the easiest push button method get a DVD/VHS combo set top box. (will probably have to be used at this point)

 

I would only use a PC if you really want to get down into the weeds with upscaling or if you need to do editing.

[Gorgon]

1 hour ago, kurzonmorris said:

My wife has a bunch of rare vhs and cassettes she wants digitising as they getting old. What hardware is best? 

 

From my searches they all seem variations on a theme and are basicly the same but software compatability seems a problem. I don't want to buy something and then regret it because a different device has better video recording.

 

What would people recommend?

Honestly, as others have said if you don't have a 4-head VCR with S-Video output then you'll likely spend less money using a Service to digitize the content.

 

Old VHS tapes can be tricky as depending on what they were recorded on there can be tracking issues (picture losing Sync and rolling or jittering up and down a bit). The video information is stored on tape as a Luminance signal and a Color (Chroma) signals. The best quality transfer will be using a S-Video rather than Composite (Yellow RCA Connector).

 

Video Equipment is loosely divided into Consumer, Industrial and Broadcast equipment in increasing order of Quality and exponential increases in price. Good transfer houses typically use Industrial VHS VCR with Time Base Correctors.

 

If you have a decent VCR and want to do the transfers yourself I'd recommend looking for a Capture Device that has a S-Video input and includes software that can save in MPG or MKV formats to save time not having to transcode from intermediate formats such as DVI. These shouldn't be that expensive these days. I can't make any specific recommendations as I transferred all my VHS footage years ago using a JVC D-VHS machine and a Firewire DVI Capture box.

 

Hint. Before transferring any Cassette you might want to Fast-Forward then Rewind the Cassette first to un-pack the tape.

 

See This Link

 

Also many Public Library have Digitization Stations that have VHS to DVD Decks.

[Kilrah]

This. Finding a capture card that still works well on modern OSes, doesn't capture garbage quality, doesn't dropout on flaky signals, comes with decent software, figuring out the encoding settings can be a mojor pain in practice.

 

When I did it I used a VHS/DVD recorder combo, shove in a DVD-R, start copy, throw the disc on the PC, copy, erase, start over. Then use a simple tool that can split/join without reencoding to merge/split individual recordings.

 

As mentioned some tapes had problems playing on the built-in deck, I used another connected to the DVD recorder for those. But I had all the stuff.

[Brian McKee]

Best analog capture card for the money is a used Datapath E1S. Personally though if you just want footage I'd just buy a game capture HD from ebay for 30-40 bucks and hook it up via composite. It also has the added bonus of having HDMI passthrough of analog sources, so you can use older analog hardware on modern tv sets assuming your TV doesn't mind 240p signals at times. The elgato also has an svideo connector but it's rare to find available.