VHS to Digital Format

[jshell]

What's the best/cheapest quality way of converting VHS tapes to digital format? Are there any upscaling functions that can give a visible increase in picture quality?

Cheers!

[Bullett]

What are you converting? Home movies would need some type of video in capture box like http://www.amazon.co.uk/tag/video%20capture/produc...

Upgrading the quality is probably not worth the effort, you should be able to clean it up a bit with some filters in whatever editing suite you use but anything more is tricky and time consuming. This isn't CSI Pistonheads.

If it's commercial tapes then don't bother it will be time consuming and poor quality than just getting DVD's. You could take a more morally ambiguous approach and see if any services have the films you want of course.

[jshell]

Some are commercial tapes, but have not been released on DVD or digital format as yet. Also some home-movie captures only kept on VHS.

Do some of the VHS to DVD integrated recorders offer value for money and decent quality?

[AndrewEH1]

Just been given a box of VHS from my Dad that I need to sort...

Can anyone recommend an actual product that works, I bought one from Maplins about a year ago. Couldn't get it to work so gave up.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

I just bought the cheapest DVD recorder I could find, an LG one on sale for £65, and recorded all my old VHS tapes on to DVD RW discs. Took bloody weeks, had dozens of 240 tapes recorded on long play from when the kids were young, but it was a cheap way of doing it.

[jshell]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

I just bought the cheapest DVD recorder I could find, an LG one on sale for £65, and recorded all my old VHS tapes on to DVD RW discs. Took bloody weeks, had dozens of 240 tapes recorded on long play from when the kids were young, but it was a cheap way of doing it.

How did the quality work out?

[megaphone]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

I just bought the cheapest DVD recorder I could find, an LG one on sale for £65, and recorded all my old VHS tapes on to DVD RW discs. Took bloody weeks, had dozens of 240 tapes recorded on long play from when the kids were young, but it was a cheap way of doing it.

This. It's then easy to upload/rip the DVD into a PC for editing and enhancing, if you want.

You can still buy DVD/VHS combos which make the job easier, do a search

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-dvd-blu-ray/dvd-bl...

[belleair302]

I have had one of these for a couple of years and the results are pretty good. Certainly not DVD good but way better than VHS. All you need is time and patience.

Panasonic DMR-EZ49V DVD/VHS Recorder

[TwigtheWonderkid]

jshell said:

TwigtheWonderkid said:

I just bought the cheapest DVD recorder I could find, an LG one on sale for £65, and recorded all my old VHS tapes on to DVD RW discs. Took bloody weeks, had dozens of 240 tapes recorded on long play from when the kids were young, but it was a cheap way of doing it.

How did the quality work out?

Obviously you can't improve over the quality of the original VHS tape you're recording off. But it didn't appear to get any worse. A VHS tape recorded on Long Play isn't great quality anyway, but it's my kids playing around, not humming birds mating on the wing!!! So top quality wasn't that vital. I was very happy. Basically got what I had before, but on DVD.

[AndrewEH1]

megaphone said:

This. It's then easy to upload/rip the DVD into a PC for editing and enhancing, if you want.

You can still buy DVD/VHS combos which make the job easier, do a search

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-dvd-blu-ray/dvd-bl...

belleair302 said:

I have had one of these for a couple of years and the results are pretty good. Certainly not DVD good but way better than VHS. All you need is time and patience.

Panasonic DMR-EZ49V DVD/VHS Recorder

£269.99! There must be a cheaper way...

[TwigtheWonderkid]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LG-Freeview-Digital-Tv-D...

This is the same model I bought, £70.

Hook the VHS up to a portable telly (with 2 scart sockets) in a spare room, hook the DVD recorder up to the same telly. Play the video in real time on the telly, and record it whilst it plays on the DVD recorder, and sod off for a couple of hours. (DVDs hold about 2 hrs of footage).