VHS-to-DVD

Depending on what you feel your time is worth, it's probably easiest/cheapest to use one of the several online services that do it. Last time I looked it was like 7 or 8 bucks a tape.

B&H Photo has them for < $100. Walmart does as well, and they'll do conversions for $20/DVD up to two tapes per.

You could probably get a bit better deal from a small place for that number of tapes. Maybe ~$300 for the lot.

Sheesh, doesn't seem like that long ago that I got the 8mm transferred to VHS! Mikek

DVD? That is obsolete too IMHO! (network, mediaplayer..) Player died years ago, never replaced it.

Why bother? DVD is almost obsolete now.

Go on eBay and search for "usb video capture" or something like that. You can convert them to .avi files for less than somebody will charge you to convert them to DVD.

What good will that do when he doesn't have any way to play the VHS tapes? As far as DVD being obsolete: Have you seen any BD players that don't play DVDs? Or CDs? Mine plays all three.

Yep, all for under $100. ...Jim Thompson

My Sony BD player was only $70.

Last time I checked that was _under_ $100 ;-)

My Samsung was $79 (with HDMI output). ...Jim Thompson

The Sony has HDMI as well, but the 10" LCD TV in my bedroom doesn't.

That reminds me, i have over 100 Gb of 8mm and super 8 already converted that need cleanup.

?-)

Amazon still sells a few combo units.

Check the descriptions as several of those are just DVD players. I have the Toshiba DVR670 and it's pretty good for my needs, but the VCR player is a cheap 2 head thing. Or at least, it performs like it only has two heads. It might be worth trying the Samsung unit to see if it's any better.

Keep in mind that if any of your VHS tapes are actually commercial recordings, the copy protection will defeat these units, unfortunately. Kind of irritating, when you own the tape and just want to switch formats.

I understand there are little electronic boxes to put in there that put the sync signal back, but don't know.

They are showing up at flea markets & thrift stores as NTSC dies off.

Robert Macy wrote:

That makes sense. I still use a VCR, to play prerecorded tapes (and have picked up some spare VCRs as they become garbage, as backup), but the minute Canada turned off the analog tv stations last summer was the minute the VCRs stopped being useful for recording. I can't see any reason I'd be recording to VCR now, I don't have satellite or cable so no NTSC signals coming over the air. I found a box of blank VHS tapes on the sidewalk a month ago, and left them there, have no use for them.

Michael

I have a pile of supposedly working VCRs to go through. I was giving them away as I tested them, but people were putting damaged tapes into them, then complaining that they didn't make it through one tape. One tape was shedding oxide, and they finally admitted that it had been under water for weeks when they shoved it into the machine.

I had a friend that ran a tape duplicating business and have cases of duplicator grade VHS tapes in storage. I'll dig them out one of these days and see if they are any good. I was using them to test VCRs, since they were only 30 minutes in standard mode.

Rusty

The last VCR I purchased was from a second hand store for ten dollars.

Rusty

That's what BitTorrent is for... 'converting' your commercial VHS tapes and music cassettes to digital format.