I looked at local businesses that handle this type of thing, and paying $20 or more per tape is… a little daunting. Doable, but there’s got to be a better way.
I’ve looked on Amazon for the kits that connect your VCR to your computer, and I’ve found a few options, ranging from $30 to $100 to $yeahi’mnotpayingthatmuchtoomanyzeroes. Some seem to get decent reviews, but then I shop around for that thing elsewhere, and find somewhat negative reviews.
So, I have three questions:
Can anyone provide a recommendation for devices that will allow me to transfer the videos on my own?
Alternatively, if businesses offer some advantage that I’m just not aware of compared to a $100-or-less device, perhaps you can call that to my attention?
And finally, does anyone want to buy a video of me throwing a football over them mountains? I can deliver digitally in four to six weeks.
Yeah, I used something similar, got it for less than 10 bucks on a close-out website more than 10 years ago. There are still models for around the same price. I don’t see any point in paying more.
Two tips:
1.) Save the video in a high-bitrate MPEG-1 while capturing–that is the least CPU demanding and can be transcoded to a more efficient codec outside realtime.
2.) No matter how you capture it, expect it to look pretty bad.
BTW, the bad reviews probably come from people that don’t realize that VHS is basically garbage and that fuzzy, small analogue (garbage) NTSC TVs are all that hid the flaws. As I mentioned earlier, it WILL look pretty bad.
I used a connector similar to what others linked to to get the video to my computer. However, if you don’t regularly work with AV files (as I don’t) it can be a bit daunting to learn how to copy everything into your computer and then burn it back to a DVD. The only time I’ve done it, I ended up with sound in only one speaker and called it good enough. I didn’t want to put any more time in to it.
As for having someone do it for you, 15 tapes at $20 is going to add up fast. You might ask them about a discount (at least if it’s a small, local place). If you don’t have a timeline, so they can do one or two a day), it’s not like it’s an active process. If it takes 2 hours to make one copy, I doubt they stand in front of the computer for more than 10 minutes.
If you could talk them down to $150 or even $200, it might be worth it rather than the time and money you’ll spend on the cables and software and the time you’ll invest learning how to do it, all to have no use for any of it as soon as the project is done.
Cheap, easy and poor to fair at best quality is what you’re going to get with your $100 budget. The only advice I have if you insist on going that route is stay away from anything labeled EZCap, EasyCap or any variation on those names. They’re all nicknamed EasyCrap at videohelp.com, which is THE place to get good and proper advice about anything video related.
If you or anyone else wasn’t good to very good quality, (which VHS is capable of, contrary to myth) it takes the right equipment ($500 to $700+) the cost of which if bought from a known good seller can largely recouped and time learning the proper techniques.
For anyone willing to at least learn what it takes to get good/very good quality, start by reading this article: http://www.digitalfaq.com/editorials/digital-video/professional-analog-workflow.htm, note that you don’t need the cameras, and only one VCR, one Time Base Corrector and one capture device, but otherwise the process is exactly the same.
Then head over to videohelp.com and do a search for VHS transfer and wade through at least a few dozen of the hundreds, perhaps thousand of threads, some going on right now before posting any question. Trust me, it’s been answered before.
Keep in my mind that some of the regulars are working, did work in the video industry and know their stuff and can help bring out the very best possible (again which can be very, very good) quality of your tapes. Before, during and after capture.
Oh, forgot, stay away from any video transfer store/service unless you research them thoroughly first. 9+ out of 10 of them don’t know or care about quality, just making money. A few weeks ago there was a poster at digitalfaq.com who said he/she ran a transfer service, but didn’t have or know what a Time Base Corrector (TBC) does. It strips and recreates the sync signal from a VCR which is the cause of numerous capture issues. I recommended, nicely, that he/she stop doing transfers until they learned about and got the proper equipment. The poster never returned.
For cheap and easy, you may luck out and find a cheap VHS/DVD recorder combo (which even the big boys like Walmart and Costco use). Cheap, easy and fair quality at best. Never beyond fair.
Occasionally I see those VHS/DVD recorders at Goodwill. I’ve also seen some of the video capture devices as well. If you have one nearby, it might be worth taking a look just to see if you get lucky. Your local craigslist might be another option.
Wow, thanks for that thorough advice. It is also somewhat disheartening, to be honest, in that there’s never an easy process for anything…
I’m starting to think it may be worth it to try to use some of the equipment that you describe provides “fair” results and see how that turns out. (I do have a VCR, FWIW.) Then if fair turns out to be worse than expected, I suppose more research to find a business that knows what they are doing.
Do you happen to have a Tivo or similar DVR? If so, you may be able to use it to record the signal and then transfer the resulting file off of the DVR.
Along those same lines, there are lots of these kinds of PVRs which record coax to a USB drive. They are typically used for antenna TV, but I would think you could hook up the VCR out to the coax in and tell the device to record channel 3. The advantage of using something like this is that the PVR could be used for watching OTA TV after you’re done transferring the tapes.
I haven’t actually done it myself, but I’ve heard of things like pyTivo and “Tivo Desktop”(?) that can somehow pull the files off the Tivo and onto your computer. I had seen some info at tivocommunity.com about that process. I have setup my Tivo to record a VCR signal. You need to go through guided setup and tell Tivo you have a cable box that goes to coax in. Then you do a manual record of channel 3 and Tivo will record it.
Here is a short clip from a video I made with an RCA 8mm camcorder at Riverside Zoo in Columbia, SC in the mid-1990s, copied to VHS by plugging the camera in to the VCR at the time, and the VHS tape then digitized around 10 years later using a $7.00-style USB capture device and processed/edited in the freeware Virtualdub. $700 equipment may or may not provide a better capture, but it won’t provide a 100x better capture.