VHS to digital

I want to do this too and am interested in the responses.
I think the ones my grandparents had are the little tapes that fit in the regular sized VHS thing. I assume it doesn't make a difference. Just send it off and they do the transfer.

Curious what places are good to use though too.

We still have a VHS -> DVD recorder unit in the closet somewhere. Picked it up to convert a few hundred VHS tapes, ended up recording them straight to DVD and then ripped the DVD's to .mkv to edit and ultimately play on Plex and share with family. Worked great, just took time as the VHS tape has to run at normal play speed.

My dad paid a guy several hundred dollars to convert them all to DVD’s and jump drives

One jump drive went into the lockbox at the bank

Was worth it to him to not deal with the probable hassle of them and electronics to pay someone else to do it

there's a guy on ebay i use. incredible and cheap for what he does. i've posted before but i'll have to look him up.

he sent all my old tapes back to me, sent me DVD copies and sent me a thumb drive with all the MPG files which can be easily posted online to google photos or plex so you can be sure you'll never lose these again. I put the thumb drive in a fire safety box and dropped a second one off at my parent's house in louisiana.

the quality was great. he cleans these up as well as converts them.

you can't replace video memories.

I used this one because i had 100 hours of video but he'll make you a deal for a little or a lot.

i wouldn't waste 10 minutes trying to do that myself.

eta LINK

quote:

---

We are located in Batavia Illinois and have been providing video transfer services since 1999 - Free Nationwide Return Shipping

At Absolute Video Services we specialize in video tape transfer. We handle, process and store all video tape personally,
in-house and utilize high quality equipment and media to bring your video footage into the digital age. With over 20 years
of providing video tape transfer services we have developed a unique process and system for video tape to DVD transfer.
This unique process has allowed Absolute Video Services to dramatically bring down the cost of the video tape to DVD
transfer while still offering the highest quality. With our simple and sensible pricing and outstanding service and value,
now is the time to save your aging video tape footage


After your purchase we will send you our order form and shipping information
Please print, complete and include a copy of our video transfer order form with the tapes that you send in
Please make sure to wait for our communication and include this form with your tapes


In this listing we are offering our advanced service of transferring up to 50 Video Tapes to DVD and MP4 digital file
These video formats are accepted for this auction
VHS/SVHS/VHSC/8mm/Hi8mm/Digital8/MiniDV

We will transfer your video tapes to quality DVD media and .MP4 File compatible with windows and mac
*Portable external hard drive or flash drive is included in the auction price

Please purchase the multiple for the number of tapes that you have - mixed tape formats ok - NTSC video tape only

After you click the buy now button, complete checkout and pay for your order you simply package your tapes securely in rigid,
well taped package, include our order form with your tapes, you pay inbound shipping to our Batavia Illinois
location, we process your tapes, pay return shipping to you and update tracking number in your eBay and Paypal account when
your order ships out to you

Please ship your tapes to Absolute Video Services:

Absolute Video Services
20 N Harrison St
Batavia, IL 60510

The content of each videotape is transferred at full resolution in it's entirety, from start to finish
Chapter point/marker every 10 minutes
DVD and storage case custom printed with family name and basic info
Each tape and DVD are numbered to match the corresponding tape or tapes on the DVD
Multi disc DVD storage cases are used to minimize the storage space in your home
Your original tapes are returned to you unless you ask us to recycle them


Additional DVD copies and other options are available in our other eBay auctions

When you send in your video tapes you should use a service that provides you insurance and tracking.
Inbound mailing/shipping cost is your expense and risk. Please make sure to properly seal and tape very
well all sides of all packages you ship to AVS.

*In order to copy any videotaped program of which you are not the producer or author, you must have
received written consent from the copyright holder for that program. Please do not send in commercially
produced copyrighted programs, Disney programs, TV programs, unless you have written permission to
copy or duplicate and included with your order. If you send in commercially produced copyright programs
without specific written permission to copy or duplicate we will reject your order and ship back to you and
deduct the return shipping from the amount you have paid and refund you the difference after return shipping

*Please keep in mind that the Ebay shipping estimate does not take into account for inbound shipping time and video transfer processing time and will not be accurate for this auction

If you have any questions or need additional information please contact us through eBay and we will provide a prompt response
We are located in Batavia Illinois - Central Time Zone

---

quote:

---

he sent all my old tapes back to me, sent me DVD copies and sent me a thumb drive with all the MPG files which can be easily posted online to google photos or plex so you can be sure you'll never lose these again. I put the thumb drive in a fire safety box and dropped a second one off at my parent's house in louisiana.

---

I realize you've got multiple copies on different types of media so not really an issue for you, but I wouldn't expect a thumb drive to hold data indefinitely. If you need it in 10 years there's a good chance you won't get anything off of it.

No real preference, nothing lasts forever and media keeps changing anyway. The important thing is to just have a solid plan for critical data, like the 3-2-1 plan which I believe you are exceeding. You have at least 3 copies of your data on at least 2 different media and at least 1 offsite. I just think the part that doesn't get talked about enough is you can only trust a copy if you regularly test a restore. How you do that is up to you and depends on your data. Maybe you put 10k photos in a zip file and put it on a thumb drive. I'm pretty sure zip stores data checks internally, so it's easy to verify the integrity of the data. Maybe every year or two, grab the drive out of your fire box, copy the data to a new drive, verify the data, and put the new drive back in the box.

I would imagine cloud storage services regularly check and repair data to make sure nothing is lost, but personally I don't trust any company to store my data forever.

I would probably go through those dvd-r's right now and see what's salvageable. Some of them claim 10 or even 100 year shelf life, but how the frick did they test that? I've had some that I couldn't read a year after burning. Maybe if they have been stored at a constant 70 degrees and 50% RH in complete darkness and were handled gently with no scratches they could last a long time. From my experience, I wouldn't trust an optical disk with any critical data for one minute.

I used legacybox. It wasn't cheap. I chose to download the converted files (mp4) and I store them on dropbox. They took a few weeks to complete it, but it was an easy process. The tapes were mailed back to me as well. The biggest pain for me is that I shipped off every tape we found when we cleaned my parents house. Some of the VHS tapes were blanks. Some had old soap operas on them that my mom recorded. And I appears my dad tapes an episode of cheers over one of my football games. So that is where I wasted my money.

quote:

---

It looks like it would be easier & cheaper to convert straight to DVD.

But is it easier to make edits from DVD, or should I go straight to digital if I’m looking to condense films?

---

any processor you are using will have to first create digital files before burning to a DVD or anything else so it doesn't make sense not to have the digital copies as well.

are you wanting to DIY? this is one of those things i had no interest in doing especially since if you find a good company like i posted above..they go above and beyond to clean up the content and use equipment way above my pay grade to do a clean conversion.

dvd/480p quality stuff takes up almost zero space so i wouldn't worry about compression at all..just get the highest quality output you can. storage isn't an issue even with 100s of hours.