What to do with a 100+ VHS tapes!

[Basil]

Over the past several weeks I have been slowly digitizing all my old VHS tapes (the ones I don't have DVDs for). I'm using a device called the Elgato Video Capture Device for Mac. It's really easy to use and does a great gob making .mp4 files from the output of my VHS player. Now the question is, what to do with all the old VHS tapes. I doubt anyone would pay for them, so I'm thinking of donating them to Good Will. My goal is to put my entire VHS and DVD collection on hard drive and get rid of my DVD and VHS players.

 

[Brooklands]

I ended up tossing 100's of tapes, but most were movies from subscription TV in the 1980's. Does the Device you are using work with copy-guarded tapes???

 

[Banjo]

Build a fort in the back yard.....

 

[Basil]

I ended up tossing 100's of tapes, but most were movies from subscription TV in the 1980's. Does the Device you are using work with copy-guarded tapes???

I don't know if any of mine are, but so far it's copied every tape I own (well, almost - still have about 6 left to do). If the tape can play on a VCR and you can get an output from either analog (composite) or S-Video, it should work.

 

[NutmegCT]

I'm interested in the copy protection issue too.

Basil, where does your conversion hardware get its signals? from the VCR's coax output, or composite "red/white/yellow" plug outputs, or S-video, or DVMI, or component output, or ...?

I've tried copying some commercial 1980s VHS, and don't get a video signal. But with tapes I recorded myself, no problem. Maybe I was using the wrong VCR output?

Thanks.
Tom

 

[Basil]

I'm interested in the copy protection issue too.

Basil, where does your conversion hardware get its signals? from the VCR's coax output, or composite "red/white/yellow" plug outputs, or S-video, or DVMI, or component output, or ...?

I've tried copying some commercial 1980s VHS, and don't get a video signal. But with tapes I recorded myself, no problem. Maybe I was using the wrong VCR output?

Thanks.
Tom

I'm using the composite video output of my VCR. I have "ripped" many many commercial videos (movies) that I have bought over the years and so far I have not had a single problem. The system I use is the Elgato Video Capture Device. If your VCR has S-video output, this device will accommodate that too.

I'm using it with my iMac, but it comes with software for Windows (Win 7 only) as well. It really is very easy to use. You can set it to stop recording after a set time. The only complaint I have (minor) is that if you want to run it on auto pilot, you can only select certain time increments to stop the recording automatically. You can set it to stop recording at 10, 30, 60, 90, 120 or 180 minutes (or you can opt to not have it automatically stop, in which case you need to be there when the tape is done so you can stop it manually). So, if you want to record a movie that has a playing time of 122 minutes, you would need to set it to auto-stop after 180 minutes, so you end up with almost an hour of dead time in your final recording. However, when the recording does finish, there are slider bars that allow you to easily "trim" the movie on either end, so it's really easy to get the movie trimmed to the exact size you want. I usually trim mine to stop after the credits are done running.

What I like about this thing is that tapes are not going to last forever, but digital data will (as long as you have it properly backed up). We have some old VHS tapes of our kids when they were younger, but the tapes have deteriorated some over time. Now at least we have digital versions that won't deteriorate any longer.

 

[Guest]

I have "ripped" many many commercial videos (movies) that I have bought over the years

This is how it starts off, next thing you know you're deeply involved in cat juggling.

 

[rkep01]

:lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[NutmegCT]

aha! Basil, I think I figured out what I was doing wrong.

I was taking the analog output from the VCR, and feeding it directly into the analog input of the DVR. It wasn't running first through a computer to be "processed".

I'm betting that either (1) your original VHS tapes were not copy protected, or (2), your Elgato system allows a transparent override.

Thanks.
Tom

 

[jsfbond]

Now the question is, what to do with all the old VHS tapes.

If you fly over the ocean....at all, Take a lesson from The movie "Castaway" . You might need to make a raft.