VCR movies need to be converted
Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2018 4:22 pm
Does anyone know a link to a good inexpensive service where I can send my VCR tapes to be converted en masse to DVD? (I don't do Blue Ray.)
Gary,
Such services end up being very expensive unless you are talking of a very few tapes. There are two options, though. You can buy a combined DVD/VHS player that can record in either direction, and with a little effort, you can make a DVD that will play in any DVD player. Examples here. They are getting hard to find,and may have issues if you have all sorts of format tapes (PAL, SECAM and NTSC). But think about it - do you really want to make DVDs when it is likely going to be impossible to buy a DVD player in the not too distant future? So I gave up on that project and now use the machine for playback only. I digitised the lot. I used a dongle from El Gato that has three RCA plugs and an S-video plug on one end and a USB plug on the other. It came with software for Mac or PC and it lets you connect your VHS player, DVD player and LaserDisk player (remember them? 12" silver analog disks), and then you record the movie to a file on the computer. I slowly (you are recording in real time, but you don't have to watch or listen) went through every one of my VHS tapes, DVDs and LaserDisks and recorded them. All are now stored on hard drive arrays (multiple backups!) attached to a server and I watch them over the home LAN on my laptop wherever I happen to be sitting. The whole process took a few weeks, and involved me changing a disk or tape whenever I walked by and entering the name of the next movie to be recorded. I didn't save them at full resolution for reasons of space, and the fact I'm watching on a 13" computer screen, so around 2,000 movies take up 3TB.
Chris