VHS to digital conversion information

<p>It's finally time to tackle the conversion of all those family VHS tapes. I'd like to archive them all to an external hard drive, that I can then use as a way to review the footage and edit the choice bits down for distribution to family on dvd. There's a lot of information out there about doing this, but I can't determine what is authoritative and what's not. Yes, I can purchase a $35 digitizer to put between my VCR and laptop, but will the quality be decent? What digital video formats are available and likely to last for a number of years? How large are the digital video files and how much storage will I need? What editing software will perform the minimal tasks I need?<br>

Can anyone point me to a good bock on the subject or a series of current tutorials on the web?</p>

<p>I use a Sony DVMC DA-1. It has S-Video and Composite in & out. Since I use an SVHS deck, I use the S-Vid.</p>

<p>It converts to Firewire, so the file is a DV Stream and can be edited by any software that supports Firewire cameras. File size is about 11 gig/hour.</p>

<p>This is a massive job, but one that needs to be done. I see this as my heritage to the children.<br>

I have done one- but that originated from 8mm film that was projected on a wall. The original films got lost.<br>

I am busy with the second stage- all my VHS and VHS C cassettes, often captured with different cameras. At this stage, I have captured all the VHS in AVI format, Lagarith compression, and after editing, save as AVI and then convert to MPEG. <br>

There is a long thread in this regard. If you are interested, I can direct you to it. Unfortunately, this thread did not kick of well, so I will need to "talk" you through it.</p>

<p>Let me know<br>

Regards<br>

Albie</p>

<p><a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/125517/article.html">This article</a> might be useful.</p>

<p>I started this as a Christmas gift to my wife. My video is on 8mm tape and I got through about 1/4 of my 50+ hours before 'both' my 8mm cameras gave up. I don't feel it is worth repairing either of them at this point so the project has screeched to a halt. I was playing the tape through the camera and into a DVD recorder with the idea I would then rip them to my hard drive for editing. It was fun while it lasted. I got through our honeymoon, the birth of one daughter and a few wild parties before having to abandon the job. Now I suspect the DVD recorder of being on its last legs, too, so will have to find another way. <br>

Good Luck!</p>

<p>I usually discourage archiving to a DVD recorder if you <em>ever</em> think you are going to want to go back and edit the video. There is a quality loss in compressing and decoding and recompressing, and it can add up pretty quick.</p>

<p>On the other hand, with set top boxes going for less than $100 these days, it's a cheap, easy way to make your video accessable if you like watching the raw footage...</p>

<p>"'both' my 8mm cameras gave up"<br />Definitely not worth the cost of repair. But since you still need one to do the transfers, why not just pick up a used one on ebay? There are plenty being sold cheap but you need to do it now. They won't be there 20 years from now.</p>

<p>You might wanna give this <a href="http://www.magix.com/us/convert-vhs-to-dvd/">video converter</a> a try. I used it for a bunch of home vids and it was nice because I could actually edit everything once it was converted! The quality is good too. It's a bit pricey but if you have tons of videos it might be more cost-effective. I originally looked for a conversion service but it was honestly too expensive for my taste. Plus then I only get them on a dvd and can't exactly do anything with them (editing ways). There should be tutorials online if that helps too. Lemme know what you think!</p>

<p>Thanks for the link Samantha. I have seen these programs for sale in the past. My problem is having no way to play the tapes now. I still haven't replaced my 8mm camera/player or VHS machine. Since then I have been scanning thousands of negatives and uploading 500 CDs instead. Each is a time consuming exercise in patience.</p>