VHS to Digital Conversion

[robp]

Hi,

I want to convert my old VHS tapes to digital. Online reviews of various video capturing devices which connect video player/camcorder to the pc seem to indicate that many can be a tad glitchy, either in sound or vision.

I would very much appreciate any recommendations as to which gear to go for.

Many thanks.

Rob

 

[GTG]

Is this possible I think ?

Get a DVD - VHS combi that has DVD recorder. It is important that it has DVD recorder and not the usual VHS recorder only.

I`m sure that I looked into this before and there was loads of them on ebay used for about £60

 

[4wd]

Even if the original recording was good it won't look great, I don't think VHS would even equate to 480p but worth trying.
I simply connected a VHS Player to a DVD recorder with variable results.
Trouble is the older tapes were definitely degrading even ten years ago.
Sound seemed to be a particular problem area.
Somehow playing into PC and re-rendering with a few tweaks ought to be better.

 

[robp]

Is this possible I think ?

Get a DVD - VHS combi that has DVD recorder. It is important that it has DVD recorder and not the usual VHS recorder only.

I`m sure that I looked into this before and there was loads of them on ebay used for about £60

It's certainly something I have considered. However, much of my later stuff is on one of those Samsung camcorders which used a slightly larger tape size that doesn't fit into a normal video player so I'm guessing I'd still need some sort of device-to-pc connection.

Thank you for your reply

 

[robp]

Even if the original recording was good it won't look great, I don't think VHS would even equate to 480p but worth trying.
I simply connected a VHS Player to a DVD recorder with variable results.
Trouble is the older tapes were definitely degrading even ten years ago.
Sound seemed to be a particular problem area.
Somehow playing into PC and re-rendering with a few tweaks ought to be better.

Thank you for your advice.

Don't worry, I'm under no illusions that I'm going to get even remotely close to decent quality reproduction and certainly expect to have to do some tweaking. This is more about future-proofing. Once I have the recordings in some sort of digital format they should be transferrable to the progressively new storage formats that will be coming along as and when technology moves on. I also hope that it prevents any further deterioration in quality.