Transfer VHS To DVD — Buy A Recorder Or Send Them Out?

One of my covid busywork projects has been archiving all my old photos and videos. I have a lot of old HI-8 and VHS tapes.

Transferring the HI-8’s became a huge hassle, but it’s almost done now and has been turning out well.

Soon it’ll be time to deal with the 25 or so VHS tapes. Unlike the HI-8’s, which were personal and very important to me, the VHS are mostly commercial tapes and random stuff that’s not critical to my existence. So, while I plan to store my HI-8 files on both DVD and backed-up hard drive, I think DVD will suffice for most of my VHS tapes. I know the DVD format is nearly extinct already but I have a lot of Blu Rays and some commercial DVD's that I watch at times, and I figure I’ll have a good DVD player for most of the rest of my life, even if I have to replace it once in a while.

So, whether to buy a DVD recorder and do the DVD transfers myself, or send them out to some shop? Recorders seem surprisingly expensive -- $500 and up — but I’d have more control and could QC as I go. I have a TBC, which would let me do some basic video adjustments on the fly. My main concern would be compatibility. After transferring some material to an older DVD-R that has long since died, I learned the hard way that my disks wouldn’t play on other machines. Longevity might also be a concern?

Sending them out might be easier and might cost less. I’d have to watch all the disks that I got back, to make sure they were ok and if there were issues, it might be hard to deal with an out of town shop.

Has anyone been through this; any recommendations? for which way to go, or what DVD-R to buy? Thanks in advance.

 

Curious about this as well. Would it not be easier to simply record the videos onto a computer and then burn a media disc of some kind from there? I've got some home movies that would be nice to preserve.

 

Look at ebay. Not just for price, also because recent models often don't have analogue in which defeats your purpose. DVD recorders from the 2000s do. You mention that some of your tapes are commercial releases, in that case macrovision might be an issue. The DVD recorder might refuse to record such a tape. A macrovision filter helps in this case, maybe also the TBC you mentioned does the job.

A brand name DVD recorder should produce a standard DVD that is compatible with all players, regardless if it's a DVD+R or DVD-R blank.

About longevity: Recordable optical media such as DVD+/-R and CD-R have a limited lifespan. Your recordings can go lost over night. So if you want to go the DVD route, make sure you create backups of all disks you make. That is what I do, I still record to DVD occasionally, because it is convenient and compatible, but I make sure I make a backup each time.

I would buy a recorder and not have the tapes sent out, because you have more control that way. The only reason to send them out if you don't want to spend the time.

 

In my experience this takes more work without any benefit. Digitising to computer makes sense if you want to do editing or post-production, otherwhise it's more hassle than it's worth. A standalone DVD recorder is much less hassle.

 

The quality of your finished product may be better if you send them out.

Most companies will supply fade-ins and -outs, titles and some will tweak the picture for better quality. I guess it depends on what you time is worth; if you don't mind the time it takes do them yourself. It might even be enjoyable.

 

I would check around local thrifts and online marketplaces for a recorder. They certainly don't cost anywhere near $500 (the notion of paying that much for one is absurd, frankly)

 

Many services will not digitize commercial tapes ("mostly commercial tapes and random stuff").

"My main concern would be compatibility. After transferring some material to an older DVD-R that has long since died, I learned the hard way that my disks wouldn’t play on other machines." -- But you could still rip the files to your computer, couldn't you?

 

But $500 of less hassle? Still, that's a good point.

 

can't completely solve your problem, but...
1) Sort the "commercial" tapes from the "random" ones.
2) Send out the "random" ones. For most people, even getting DVD's back from the Costco or WalMart services will suffice.
3) Back. Them. Up.

 

Buy one of these:

ClonerAlliance Box Pro - Record videos/games and play back instantly.

put it after your TBC, get a USB hard drive and record to .mp4 format. If you want to burn to DVD, easiest thing is use their software.
If you want a more professional looking DVD, there's lots of software that will take a .mp4 and produce a DVD compliant file.

 

Yeah. I see DVD recorder’s all the time at the Goodwill. 12 bucks at most. Nobody wants them. I’m sure you can get one off eBay brand new for $30.

 

Or a VHS player/DVD recorder combo---than you can transfer them yourself.

 

Theres different types of DVD recorders - one big difference is whether it has a hard drive. I've owned a Panasonic and a Magnavox (both with HD's) and if you want to do a quality transfer you'll want to record your tapes onto a hard drive, edit it then burn it to disc. I did this for years but pretty much stopped when everything I needed to transfer was done and most modern video is now high definition. I wouldn't count on being able to transfer any commercially recorded tapes - most do have copy protection. If you want to go this route I'd suggest a Panasonic (I had a DMR-E80H) - looking on ebay they start around $100.

 

Getting them used, you'll need to either know how to clean them and maybe calibrate them, or know somebody who can service them. Relatively easy to learn, but essential to make sure you get a good dub. Problems most often come up when trying to play back a tape on another machine whose azimuth doesn't quite match the one it was recorded on.

 

Yes this is what I do. My Panasonic dvd recorder is still going strong after 10 years, and my old Sony VHS machine. I finished transferring old recordings and family movies years ago but I would hate to part with either machine because now and again I find old music VHS tapes in second hand shops that haven't been released on DVD, and after transferring the VHS to the DVD I rip it to the PC and make a back up that will play on any DVD player.

 

They can be had much cheaper used.

 

The problem with these is that they refuse macrovision and you can't loop in a macrovision killer to defeat this. Also the VHS in the combo units tend to be mediocre. Better go for separate units.

 

I purchased this simple video capture device from Elegato recently to transfer 8mm video cassette to my MacBook Pro laptop. It was very easy, worked well and I can highly recommend it. For around $100 it did the trick. One of these days I plan on transferring some of my concert laserdiscs to insure playability.

 

Many thanks for all the replies. This is a lot of great input and I'll need to digest it. After reading the replies I think I'm leaning towards doing this myself and with a stand alone system, not my computer.

When I mentioned having "commercial" VHS tapes, I used he wrong term. Most of them are seminars, lectures, dive videos, and some "mom and pop" produced documentaries. Maybe 1 or 2 TV shows, and no movies. So, though I had forgotten about Macrovision I'd be surprised if more than 1 or 2 of my tapes have it.

On ebay and Amazon I really did see fairly basic looking DVD-R's selling for $500 and even $800. I have no idea why but will take a closer look at what's available, It makes sense that should be able to find a new or used one much, much cheaper than that.

Thanks again and I'll follow up when I've narrowed things down more, or have other questions.

 

Another bit of advice is to avoid using any sort of adhesive label on your discs to affix artwork or track listings. The adhesive in many of these labels can shorten the lifespan of the discs considerably. Many of my discs with labels stopped playing, while the ones without labels still work great.

 

I use basically the same device and it works nicely. The benefit of recording to your computer is that the copy on your hard drive(s) becomes the backup. You can then edit the file and burn to disc anything you want to play in your DVD player. Plus, these days, there is less need to burn anything to disc. You can often just play the files from a hard drive (or even a USB thumb drive) directly to your TV. Most TVs can now play files directly, especially those in MP4 format.

 

Depends on how good the VHS machine you have for a start. If you have a decent machine then it may be worth buying a DVD recorder.

I did mine a while back on a DVDR with a hard-drive, which allowed you to record the tape then you could edit it, cut things out and insert chapter marks, title cards and so on. So it allowed me to make custom compilations of artists spread across many tapes, which I don't think you would get sending them off. It all depends on the project really, I had loads of VHS with music clips I wanted to organise and doing it myself was the only wat.

Once done you have the machine with the stuff on the hard drive to watch easily. Make a couple of copies of each thing on a disc for back-up and you're probably sorted until death! You can finalise the disc so it becomes playable on anything.

 

Just to echo much of what has been said, a standalone VCR and DVD recorder with a hard drive can work really well. About 15 years ago I took what was left of my VHS and LD collection that I had yet to upgrade to DVD and burned them to DVD-Rs. I have a Pioneer DVR-510H, and the editing features are remarkable.

 

Why DVD? Just rip into a file. Make sure that frame rate and interlace are handled correctly. May as well do some color correction and deinterlace from 30i to 60p for easier handling.

 

I've been through this. Unless the VHS tapes have never been released on DVD or Blu Ray, do yourself a favor and thrown them out, and buy the discs (preferably used, but new if you must). However many remain from those 25 that you haven't thrown out, send those out for transfer to your local video transfer place. You'll end up with higher quality with less cost and less hassle.

Derek