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Transferring VHS to DVD?

edith headedith head 5,106 Posts
edited August 2007 in Strut Central
i know some of you still have vhs tapes and wonder if any of you have digitized them. i have a lot that i've held onto but my shelf space is limited and would like to transfer the bulk of it to dvd so i can get rid of them and also to make it easier for me to burn copies for other folk since people don't really have vcrs these days. i'm looking at the least inexpensive way where i can do it myself instead of taking it to a video place. does anyone have any experience with this? thanks in advance

  Comments

  • FatbackFatback 6,746 Posts
    first I used my computer and that was a pain in the ass--rebuilding the whole shit from scratch. and the quality was suspect. everyone suggested getting one of those combo units because it's more automatic. (paging Birdman). i bet those things are cheap as shit now.

    i never got around to it and just tossed my tapes. all the shit i had that i thought was rare is all over youtube anyhow.
  • edith headedith head 5,106 Posts
    combo units? what's that?

    i'm pretty sure most of the bootlegs i have are all over youtube but there are also homemade movies and stupid comedy sketch stuff that i'm too sentimental to throw away
  • DJ_ZestDJ_Zest 252 Posts
    Edith:
    The Canopus ADVC 55 does a good job for analog to digital video conversion, if you are on a Mac it will be recognized automatically by iMovie...
    Keep in mind DV files take up tons of disk space... A big external hard drive would be a good plan.
    Hope this helps
    Zeb
  • hcrinkhcrink 8,729 Posts
    I just bought a new non-dubbing combo unit, and while shopping, saw that there were ones that would dub for about 3 times the price (about $300). I'm assuming they work like a CD burner... hit play on the tape and record on the DVD burner and it just straight copies. I was tempted.
  • Birdman9Birdman9 5,417 Posts
    combo units? what's that?

    i'm pretty sure most of the bootlegs i have are all over youtube but there are also homemade movies and stupid comedy sketch stuff that i'm too sentimental to throw away

    http://www.govideo.com/?GV=VR4940

    get one of these, or some similar model. We got ours at Costco about 3 years back, and it has come in handy for recording Tivo stuff to DVD off the TV, or duping VHS to DVD. Sadly, some VHS have coding that prevents copying, but I would say that 7 out of 10 VHS tapes easily copies to DVD without any problem.

    Feel free to PM me if you want to send me something, as long as it's not like 10 VHS tapes or anything, I could take a crack at it. There is always a chance that some DVDs ripped from VHS don't play in certain players, but that could also be the type of DVD being used, it's really hard to narrow down exactly why some DVDs fail to play.
  • edith headedith head 5,106 Posts
    thanks for the info everyone! i think i might go with that govideo device since they are cheap now and i forgot to factor in hard drive space for the computer option. i didn't even know those things existed
  • SnagglepusSnagglepus 1,756 Posts
    Just to put it out there, if anyone is considering a video converter I'd recommend the Canopus ADVC110. I grabbed one of the products made by Pinnacle Systems and have had problems with the video falling out of sync. It's usually ok for a 5 minute clip but craps out soon after that. The Canopus product keeps the video in sync quite well. I imagine that the same is true for the ADVC55.
  • PlantweedPlantweed 394 Posts
    I've been using a Panasonic DVD recorder for a couple years now, heavy use and no problems.
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