How to transfer VHS tapes to my hard drive and DVD's

[BUGNUT]

I have a bunch of home movie VHS tapes I want to transfer to my PC's hard drive and later burn to a DVD. What is the best and most economical way to do this. I went to my local big box store and they were puching me to buy a $99.99 transfer kit. It comes with a USB cable and software. I think Pinicle was the kits software. I have a box full of cables from video cards I've bought over the years and am hoping to use what I have rather that spend a "C" note. Your suggestions would be appreciated.

[mazz72]

You're probably not going to do it for under $100, at least not well. There are devices for less than that (even less than $50) but they're hit or miss. You're taking your chances with them. If you want to have good luck doing something like that, you have to spend a little money. Canopus is a great brand for analong->digital coverters. What you get also depends on the types of inputs you have on your PC. FireWire is faster than USB, and if all you have is USB, you can find FireWire PCI cards for cheap. That's not to say you can't use USB.

If you have FireWire, this is a good converter for a decent price:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814144214

As for software, Windows Movie Maker is sufficient for what you want to do.

[Masaki 7-11]

Probably the easiest way to go about this is to buy a VCR (if you don't have one) and hook it up to your computer through a TV Tuner; you won't need any fancy TV Tuner either, so something like this will work: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16815306009

[BUGNUT]

I never thought to use a TV card for this. I checked my PC treasure chest and found a couple of old ATI tuner cards. One is a PCI card and the other is an ISA card. Now to find the cables. Do I need any special software to do the transfer? Thanks for the help.

[Masaki 7-11]

Originally Posted by BUGNUT I never thought to use a TV card for this. I checked my PC treasure chest and found a couple of old ATI tuner cards. One is a PCI card and the other is an ISA card. Now to find the cables. Do I need any special software to do the transfer? Thanks for the help.

You'll need the software that came with the tuner cards (or other software that is compatible) so it will let you see the video and let you record.

[BUGNUT]

Originally Posted by Masaki 7-11 You'll need the software that came with the tuner cards

Now I'll really have to dig deep into the treasure chest to find that. I should have it as I did buy the PCI card new, must be near ten years ago.

[RayH]

The job is messy, rather time consuming. If you have one or two tapes, maybe I'd go the do-it-yourself route with a video capture card and a freeware called Virtual VCR. It's how I used to do it in the OLD days. But as I said, the job is messy and time consuming. If you have a large number of tapes, I'd buy a VCR-DVD recorder. Stick the VHS tape in and a blank DVD on the other side and record. Edit the DVDs.

[BUGNUT]

Well it looks like I'll here a while transfering the tapes. My wife is a dance instructor and has boxes of studio tapes for me to transfer. Buying a VHS/DVD player is out of the question. I have 2 VCR's I don't use anymore. I'll check out that freeware software you recommended. Thanks.

[glc]

Also check locally to see how much it would cost to get them commercially done.

[RayH]

You are going to wind up with some big files on your hard drive. You can get a VCR-DVD recorder for under $100. They are designed for that job. Just stick the tape in and a blank DVD. It'll record itself. Then just edit the DVDs.

[BUGNUT]

Originally Posted by glc Also check locally to see how much it would cost to get them commercially done.

Cost up here is about $12.00 each. That would mean $400-$500 to get them done.

Any idea if a VCR/DVD/Blueray player is available? I would consider that if it exists.

[Petef56]

Originally Posted by BUGNUT Cost up here is about $12.00 each. That would mean $400-$500 to get them done. Any idea if a VCR/DVD/Blueray player is available? I would consider that if it exists.

Consider this. You go though all the time and expense to convert VHS TAPES to DVD DISCS and some years from now DVDs become obsolete and some new format becomes standard. Then you'd have the job of converting all those DVDs to the new format.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't it make better sense to store the vast majority of your personal library of media, both video and audio, to the computer hard drive which seems to be the one format that will not be changing for a long time and easily transfers to another hard drive when the technology does change. In other words, all your "master" recordings of video, and audio should be stored on your hard drive and if you need portability, you use the computer to transfer the data to a DVD or a CD, or an MP3 player or whichever format is currently in use.

---pete---

[ryuk999]

Only one flaw in that Pete, when the hard drive fails you lose all you data. So I'd say just buy another hard drive to backup that one and it's a brilliant idea

[RayH]

Not too much is going to enhance the video except maybe an upvert after its converted to DVD.

I used to convert VHS to digital format with RCA cables and a video capture card. No way going around the first round of 1:1 conversion. Virtual VCR will do a decent job to convert the tapes to avi files. From there, I'd recommend converting to DivX. Stand alone DivX players are easily had or use a WD HD TV media player.