Copy VHS tapes to PC

[psd99]

Hi all,

has anyone copied VHS tapes to a HDD?

what is the easiest way of doing this?

i still have my old vcr player kicking about and it just about works
Wow getting my head around all of the features been a while

what’s the best and easiest way to copy the old videos over to my PC?

seen a lot of devices online but split opinions

 

[benjii]

You can do it on the cheap with a basic capture card, either external or internal. Just pick one that has the right inputs for your VHS player output.

 

[Diddums]

You can do it on the cheap with a basic capture card, either external or internal. Just pick one that has the right inputs for your VHS player output.

This^

I wouldn't bother with those dedicated VHS recorder things, I feel like they're ridiculously overpriced because the type of people to use them generally won't know better.

 

[psd99]

yer I just had a really tough time with my hauppauge hvr 1300 card
gosh I used it in the past to pick up analogue channel 68/69 on RF via my VCR but after messing around with it for almost 2 days it just didnt pick the VCR up.

I went and ordered something online for £5 hopefully that will work.

 

[andy_mk3]

I borrowed the in-laws vcr/dvd combi which allowed vcr to record onto dvd, then them ripped that onto a PC.

 

[paradigm]

This:

 

[andy_mk3]

I should add a lot of VCR's that haven't been used in many years may start chewing up tapes, so try it with something that's not important before you risk ruining anything.

 

[Energize]

This:

Ugh composite upscaler, the quality is significantly inferior to s-video or RGB scart.

 

[Puzzled]

This:

Interesting, we've been using a cheap analogue usb capture device but the results aren't great. The results from that HDMI capture device looked good but then you have the faff of the video being stretched and framerate mismatch.

A vhs to dvd recorder would be easiest but they are expensive second hand, I could sell it on afterwards though.

 

[Eurofighter]

You can buy something that goes from composite to usb. Mini capture card thingy. My friend has one. Ebay.

 

[psd99]

I should add a lot of VCR's that haven't been used in many years may start chewing up tapes, so try it with something that's not important before you risk ruining anything.

yes that is EXACTLY what happened to me.

there was a tape in there for probably 10/15 years since it was last turned on and it just kept chewing it away

I left the VCR on for 1/2 hours - removed the tape and it had some type of grease on the film

the next tape worked okay

why would it have this problem? components not turned on for a while?

 

[bushmins]

yer I just had a really tough time with my hauppauge hvr 1300 card
gosh I used it in the past to pick up analogue channel 68/69 on RF via my VCR but after messing around with it for almost 2 days it just didnt pick the VCR up.

I went and ordered something online for £5 hopefully that will work.

I'm looking to do some converting as well. Did you buy the EasyCap thing on ebay? I was looking around the net and found lots of people unable to get the drivers to work. If you did can you please update this thread on how you got on, or let me know what one you bought if it wasnt EasyCap. Ta.

 

[Pawnless Endgame]

You can buy something that goes from composite to usb. Mini capture card thingy. My friend has one. Ebay.

This.

Search for "SCART to USB" on eBay or Amazon, and I ended up with something like this. This is going back to 2008, and even back then, Windows didn't need a driver because it found it straight away.

Then download OBS. This is a freebie desktop recording software which is popular with video game streamers. You can capture desktop, an individual window, full screen games, webcams, microphones, capture cards including HDMI e.g. consoles, scan converters e.g. for my BBC Micro, and of course the SCART-to-USB also counts as a capture card.

Press play on the VHS recorder and hit record on OBS. When saving the file, you ideally want it as MP4 because that can be opened anywhere. Depending on your settings, it will take up around 1GB per every 30 minutes of video.

Edit: I just realised what I linked didn't have the SCART bit. If you have that bit already then great. If not, then you'll need to buy a SCART to composite / RGB adapter with the black and white/yellow/red inputs then you're set.

 

[Donnie Fisher]

It's not the VCR that chews the old tapes. Its the tapes themselves. The ribbon goes brittle over time, and when its played / fast wound and pulled around the rollers, they often break. Not the players fault.

 

[Puzzled]

This.

Search for "SCART to USB" on eBay or Amazon, and I ended up with something like this. This is going back to 2008, and even back then, Windows didn't need a driver because it found it straight away.

Then download OBS. This is a freebie desktop recording software which is popular with video game streamers. You can capture desktop, an individual window, full screen games, webcams, microphones, capture cards including HDMI e.g. consoles, scan converters e.g. for my BBC Micro, and of course the SCART-to-USB also counts as a capture card.

Press play on the VHS recorder and hit record on OBS. When saving the file, you ideally want it as MP4 because that can be opened anywhere. Depending on your settings, it will take up around 1GB per every 30 minutes of video.

Edit: I just realised what I linked didn't have the SCART bit. If you have that bit already then great. If not, then you'll need to buy a SCART to composite / RGB adapter with the black and white/yellow/red inputs then you're set.

Interesting, will have a look at that OBS software as the one that came with my capture card only records to AVI so you end up with 30GB+ files that then need to be converted.

Do you know if it deinterlaces the video when you capture in MP4?

 

[Donnie Fisher]

You specify an output format when saving, so it should do.