Convert VHS to Digital now with ease. VHS cassettes are of terrible quality when compared to DVD, much alone Blu-ray. If you haven’t seen one in a while, it’s a good idea to watch one and check if you’re still satisfied with it despite being spoilt by the considerably higher quality of more recent video formats. After all, digitizing your old tapes will make them no better.
If you intend to keep some VHS tapes of posterity, you’ll need a VHS video player, which you’ll have to borrow or buy if you’ve already gotten rid of your old one.
Despite being obsolete, they are still available new and secondhand. The latter will be extremely inexpensive, but keep in mind that, as with most mechanical equipment, there is no guarantee that a used recorder will operate satisfactorily. On sites like Freegle and Freecycle, it was well worth asking for one free unwanted player.
Check your old tapes, and if they’ve been collecting dust – literally – clear more than you can from the section of the cassette where the tape is exposed to avoid it from getting drawn inside when you play it. Check to see whether the spindles have seized up. If this is the case, try relocating them by hand before playing your offending tape.
If you don’t want to acquire any equipment or don’t have the time to digitize all of your VHS tapes, a commercial service is available, but fees can quickly mount up if you have a lot of cassettes.
Suppose you have a VHS player and wish to do the job yourself, you’ll need a mechanism to transfer the video from the tape to your computer.
The MAGIX Rescue Your Videotapes bundle is a good solution, but at £39.99, it’s not cheap (despite appearing to be a fantastic deal due to the exorbitant RRP). However, it includes everything you’ll need to make the process as simple as possible, so that won’t have to buy anything more.
The software is simple to use & will attempt to improve the audio and visual quality. It will allow you to customize your videotape experience by playing it back in real-time.
There’s also an instructional page, so if you get stuck, you may use one of the basic guides to get back on track.
There are less expensive options for accomplishing this conversion, such as purchasing or using a VHS/DVD combo player (also readily available secondhand), which will allow you to record from VHS directly to a DVD, that can then be ‘ripped’ to a computer digital file on your laptop if this is what you desire.
Connecting the video output of a VHS player to a video input of a DVD recorder is a similar solution. You’ll need an A/V cable for this, either a Scart or a composite video & RCA (phono) audio wire.
If you don’t have a DVD recorder, your PC can digitize your VHS tapes and, if desired, burn them to a DVD. You will, however, require some extra video capture devices and software.
Because image quality isn’t an issue with VHS tapes (i.e. it’s intrinsically bad), the major factors to consider when selecting software are pricing, the convenience of use, reliability, and support quality. Because these features aren’t immediately apparent. Converters, such as this USB capture dongle from Amazon, cost roughly £20/$20.
Those are the steps to follow if you wish to proceed down this path.
Step 1: Use the connection or cords that came with your program. To link your VHS video player to your PC. It should resemble the illustration above. It’s possible that you’ll require a unique Scart cable with red, white, and yellow connections, or that your video player already has these outputs. (Front-mounted white, red, and yellow connections are nearly always inputs, not outputs, so you won’t be able to utilize them.)
Step 2: The procedure for digitizing your VHS cassettes should be simple enough. Start the recording software (that comes with a USB capture dongle) on your computer & start recording from the beginning of your VHS tape.
Step 3: Stop your recording software and the video VHS tape at the end of the video.
Step 4: If you’re burning your captured video to DVD, your software there a feature for it. But if it doesn’t, you can use Freemake. This will record the digital video taken from your VHS tape to your DVD player.
Insert an empty DVD into your computer’s DVD writer (when it doesn’t have one. An inexpensive USB DVD writer may be purchased from Amazon for roughly £15/$15).
Burning the file to Blu-ray is pointless due to the poor quality of VHS, which is a waste of money. DVDs are less expensive and have greater quality than VHS.
If you wish to transfer the captured video to MP4, which is supported by tablets and phones, read this full guide to converting videos to multiple formats. Connecting your phone or tablet to your computer via USB cable is all it takes to watch a movie on your phone or tablet.
If you do have an Android device, watch for a notification for USB choices. As it will just charge and not enable file transfers by default. The settings will differ per Android device. But once you’ve set the USB mode of file transfers, Windows File Explorer should recognize it as a new drive.
Copy the MP4 video file you previously saved to your Android device’s Videos or Movies folder. After that, it should appear in your default video app.
If you do have an iPhone, you could save the video to iCloud Drive and then access it through the Files app. Another approach is to import the MP4 video into your iTunes library, and connect your phone (or iPad) to your computer, and drag & drop the file to the device from your library.
You might also be interested in learning how and where to convert vinyl to digital format.
No one, and no technology, can stop time. You may have saved family memories to film in the past, but VHS use no longer. If you’re like most people, you have a cabinet full of VHS cassettes. But haven’t used a VCR in at least 10 years. While it is possible to convert VHS to digital, don’t put it off for too long. Because the video contained on VHS degrades by up to 20% every 10-25 years. The contents of your old cassettes will be lost forever.
Even if your grandkids’ robot butler can 3D print a VCR from archive schematics of 20th-century consumer electronics. Your old tapes are too fuzzy for them all to watch by then.
If you wish to save your family VHS cassettes as video files on your computer hard disc. You may do so easily by putting together a few components. Throughout a few idle weekends, you can convert these videos almost effortlessly.
The time is running out. Your VHS collection deteriorates a little more with each passing year. If it’s been a while since you’ve viewed a videotape. You may surprise at how low the quality compares to video from a smartphone or digital camera. But your tape collection has likely already lost 10-20% of its quality from the day it film. Don’t waste any more time—all here’s you need to know.
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