When your VHS tape reaches the end, press “Stop” on your DVD recorder or conversion software. Open the conversion software installed on your computer. This will help you manage and monitor the entire conversion process. Connect the VHS player to a power source and plug it into your TV using the appropriate cables. Make sure the player is working properly by playing the tape. In the mid range is the DIGITNOW USB Video Capture Card Device Converter ($21.99) which, in addition to RCA connectors, also has an S-Video connector.
The Direct, At-Home Way: Use a DVD Recorder
DVDs can hold about an hour of higher quality video, or up to 4 hours of lower resolution footage. If you have 10 three-hour VHS tapes for example, you may need DVDs. However, image quality may suffer slightly when squeezing that much VHS content onto a single disc. I recommend sticking to 1-2 hours of video per DVD to maintain better integrity. This option allows you to drop off and pick up the tapes in person rather than mailing them. The Samsung SV-5000 is a multi-system VHS VCR that does conversion. Supposedly it is very hard to find these days but currently 220-Electronics.com claim that they have it in stock at $469.00 US Dollars + shipping.
The system shown also has built-in editing features, which allow you to delete or shorten boring (or embarrassing!) scenes, type in on-screen notes and even add a sound track. And more, the software even has options to enhance washed-out colors and stabilize shaky movies. You can order this system directly from the company or contact the company to find a retail store that carries it. You won’t need a lot of hard drive space—your videos will consume about a gigabyte per hour of footage. Unless you have a truly monstrous library, you can probably fit your entire family video library on a 32GB USB flash drive, or archive it in a cloud storage service like Dropbox. That gives you a lot of options; you can keep all your VHS movies on the same hard drive as all your other files, or put them on a special portable USB drive just for those kinds of memories. This method also gives you the flexibility to edit the video as much as you want, adding transitions, special effects, music, etc.
Lots of professionals convert old home movies to digital. Depending on the size and scope of your collection, the service might actually be more affordable than buying all the right equipment. And in terms of the time and effort you’ll save, getting help from the pros is much more convenient. ADCs turn electronic signals from your playback device into digital video files. They’re sold as external boxes that connect to your playback device, or computer cards that can be installed on your PC.
Drivers are little bits of software that tell Windows how to connect to and capture video from a VHS-to-digital converter. These are often included with your VHS-to-digital software but it’s worth checking the manufacturer’s website to see if there are more up to date versions. Legacy Box uses a one-size-fits-all pricing structure when it comes to digitization. The company ships you a box, you add barcodes to your tapes you want digitized, put the tapes in the box, and ship it back to the company.
Read more about vhs to dvd conversion here.
How to turn VHS into digital
Plus they transfer reel to reel film, pictures and more. But since the transfer to your computer directly from the cloud is less appealing unless you want this as a backup – which is always smart with precious memories. The benefit of transferring to USB is that you can easily transfer these files to your computer as well as upload them to social media sites for sharing. If you have two hours of VHS and transfer it to a DVD, you may find a decline in quality. If your program allows, change the resolution from 720×480 to 352×480.
Tapes can be converted to MP4 and stored on a thumbdrive for an additional $83.95 or as a digital download from a Cloud service starting at $42.95. With the right hardware and software it’s really easy to take old VHS video tapes, digitize them and then edit, store or share them with others. Pop the VHS that you are looking to digitize into the VCR and rewind to the spot where you’d like it to start from.