Convert VHS recordings and put on DVD
 

Can anyone recommend equipment for converting our home made VHS recordings to digital and putting on a DVD? I guess I could store the digital on the PC and then burn them to DVD.

thanks

macafee2

I spent ages looking at doing that but ended up just taking it to a local shop to do it for me. It cost about £15 ( I gave him double!) for a couple of videos and some 8mm and super 8 home movies. That was about ten years ago and the shop has since closed (unsurprisingly at those prices!). There may still be folks who specialise in that sort of thing. He told me that my old 8 and super 8 films have a habit of self combusting, so I got rid of them once thay had been put on disc.;)

thanks.
A web site for a place in tow is £27 a video which I think is expensive so was hoping for something more along your £15 or stuff to do it DIY

macafee2

You can buy the 'adapter' online (I got mine from ebay: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/185588012482 and then plug it into a video player (you may need another adapter if your player doesn't have rca sockets on it) and your PC and then record the output of the video player and then 'burn' a dvd.

thanks, I have the Red, white and yellow sockets but not a socket for the black plug. Looking at one of the Ebay pictures the black socket is not used, is that correct?

macafee2

Red, white and yellow should be all you need.. Red and white are audio left and right and yellow is the video feed.

thank you. Next question How would i know if my videos or video are SECAM or too old video formats?
The advert says

This video capture does not support SECAM and too old video formats.

macafee2

SECAM is/was the French colour tv standard, so unless your recordings originated from across the Channel you’ll be fine.

I’m guessing that the too old video formats is referring to 405 line black and white. Anything recorded on home video in the UK from the mid seventies onwards will be in the 625 line PAL colour signal format, this includes all VHS, Betamax, Phillips Video 2000, Phillips N1500 & N1700 formats as well as Sony Video 8,VHS-C camcorder tapes and Mini DV too. :}

Brilliant, thank you.
I will follow up on this tomorrow but all the help on this thread is very much appreciated, thank you

macafee2

Those cheap usb video converters are really NAUGHTY WORD-NAUGHTY WORD-NAUGHTY WORD-NAUGHTY WORD- i am about to commence converting some 8mm footage and found using that type of device unsatisfactory so stopped but also the condition of the heads on the playback machine is critical given the age they need cleaning at a min as the tapes are often filthy as well.


I have an old and more robust pci card to do this job just waiting on an adapter to use it in a PCI-e machine with modern processing ability it should rock if the drivers will work. If interested and if i get good results am willing to help friends out it can deal with most PAL/SECAM/NTSC signals from analogue sources and also looking to upmix mono audio in to stereo on the fly with ease. Tried to do this in the single core era some years ago and not good lol. Im told some of the later sony camcorders and decks have the ability to produce a digital video signal internally from analogue tapes but those machines are rarer today but would provide best results it seems.