Comments on: How to digitally encode VHS home movies

By: video_archiver

video_archiver — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 23:42:18 +0000

With proper care, VHS and 8 tapes will long outlast digital files (DVD, MPEG, etc.).

Keep the original files (VHS, 8, etc.)!

Archiving home movies has two steps:
1) Preservation copy: Always keep the original. There are still old home movies from the early 1900s that still work today. Try equating that with digital– how many old floppy disks still load for you today? How about larger disks or zip drives? VHS and similar solid state tapes are time proven. Keep them if you care about them.

2) Access copy: You don’t want to keep watching your preservation copy (VHS, 8, etc.), as viewing them multiple times puts wear on them. Back them up to DVD and hard disk for regular viewing. (I can’t stress this enough: KEEP the original preservation tapes!)

By: Bill

Bill — Sat, 23 May 2009 19:38:59 +0000

I have used this Costco service (Mayfield Heights Ohio). The company they use in California does an OUTSTANDING job. All the old old reel footage came back with amazing clarity resolution and enhanced color. I had a duplicate transfer from a local company near my house and the Costco service blew it away. I’m still in awe in how much better the DVD looks by using this service. They (company in California who costco uses) obviously has expensive equipment and professional experience to get the job done right. AND THE PRICES…. you can’t beat ‘em.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Sun, 03 May 2009 07:23:07 +0000

I have a Hauppauge 1600 (I needed a PCI card). Works great for recording HDTV, SDTV, or an external video source like VHS. It has coax input, S-video input. It comes with a RCA to S-video converter cable if your external video source doesn’t have SVideo (a lot of VCR’s only have RCA jacks). I bought mine for $70 but that was awhile back. probably cheaper now.

By: Linda N

Linda N — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 20:31:18 +0000

If you are looking to donate any store bought VHS movies before they are no longer playable, our local library take them for others to checkout, and there is also the battered women’s shelter, and daycare centers to check with.

By: Erika

Erika — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 08:19:51 +0000

Hmmmm do you think encoding these things will lead to more being stored? I mean, if one has more room, one tends to store more stuff. Don’t you think?

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 18:38:51 +0000

I am the production manager at http://www.FamilyMemoriestoDVD.com, a website that is mentioned in this posting. I would like to thank Unclutterer.com for mentioning our services! When it comes to old tapes, reels, and slides, there is no substitute for converting them into a digital format. This can come in the form of a DVD/CD, or a data file on a computer.

Family Memories to DVD has been producing quality conversions for years and is about to roll out our sleek new website in the coming weeks. Please check out our services if you are in need any any transfer work! We have been the exclusive vendor for many MotoPhoto franchises in New Jersey and New York, and we also provide services for many others. Please don’t hesitate to call us at (908) 789-1005. Thank you!

By: Retired Film Guys

Retired Film Guys — Wed, 21 May 2008 14:34:43 +0000

We are a small 8mm and Super 8mm film transfer to DVD company that provides highest quality frame by frame transfers. Great price, fast services, and highest quality for the local Chicagoland area. Call us with any questions.
Your films never leave our hands and are returned to you as you gave them to us.

By: Michael

Michael — Sat, 17 May 2008 23:44:18 +0000

I discovered a great company about 2 months ago called iMemories. They converted my VHS tapes and 8mm film reels, and did a really professional job. This firm allows you to see your home movies online before they are put on DVD. That way you can organize and label the DVDs the way you want.

By: Marc

Marc — Sat, 17 May 2008 19:27:28 +0000

I have Samsung DVD Recorder VHS Player DVD-VR357 that can upconvert VHS to an HDMI output. I also have a Black Magic Designs Intensity PCIe card with HDMI in/out. Converting VHS-to-DVD(MPEG-2) is simple using the Samsung stand-alone unit, but the MPEG-2 format is not the best for editing (as mentioned above). I have yet to audition the ‘upconverted’ VHS HDMI output (from the Samsung Combo player) and route it to the HDMI ‘in’ (on the Intensity PCIe card) and then capture to my PC’s SATA Drive/RAID to an .AVI format (to edit/compress to any desired format afterwards). I also have a Canopus/Grass Valley TwinPact100 that accepts DV in (from a camera),
Composite(not component) in, VGA in, and connects to PC via Firewire, but I think taking composite ‘out’ from the Samsung would be a step backwards quality-wise. Incidentally, the Samsung plays MPEG4 files ending in .avi, .divx…if only it would rip VHS to .AVI as well as MPEG-2.

By: mylar jorgen

mylar jorgen — Tue, 13 May 2008 02:58:12 +0000

Simplest ans safest way is to borrow a DVD recorder and record your VHS tapes onto good quality DVDs using the relevant cable, then download a good DVD ripper from a big freeware site and rip them to a plug-in external Hard-disk saving them as an ISO (vob files) which DVD disc players can read, or convert them to something else like WMVs which windows media player can read, any DVD rippers he;p files will explain it, or WIKI. Then check they all play ok and store the Hard disk and DVDs away in seperate places. There are also places online you can store stuff but i don’t know much about that. If you have no decent DVD player program on your PC, download VLC media player, it plays every type of audio and video file, is free and doesnt try to do or install anything else. Hope that helps. mylarjorgen@yahoo.com

By: Lynda

Lynda — Mon, 12 May 2008 22:15:14 +0000

Windows Media Center (which comes with XP or Vista) has the capability to record from a video card. The video card I have has standard RCA jacks that any VCR or camcorder can plug into. Once the video is recorded, I use a program called VideoReDo to make the edits, as it can edit the Media Center format, the MPEG formant used on newer digital camcorders and edit straight from .VOB files you’d find on a DVD (like, if you used a VHS-to-DVD recorder, which I do sometimes).

VideoReDo has a joiner feature, so more than one file can be joined (like three-tape parties), and then I use VSO’s ConvertXtoDVD to make a DVD with or without a menu to play in any player that can take DVD-Rs (or +Rs, or +RWs, you know what I’m saying.)

I don’t ever throw away my own home videos, however, as VHS or 8mm tape can get dropout but still play, where a DVD can fail for any number of reasons and it’s gone. I realize that’s crazy talk for declutterers but it’s also common sense until someone can prove that the dyes used in DVD-Rs will hold up for generations.

(I do home movie-to-DVD conversion, btw, it’s one of my jobs, so…anyone who doesn’t want to bother doing themselves…*ahem* Hi!)

By: Scott Kraft

Scott Kraft — Mon, 12 May 2008 14:38:21 +0000

Lets not forget that many digital video cameras like my Canon Elura 100 have video trough put or input. That means I can hook the digital video camera up to the VCR and record from VHS to DV tape (then easily put that on the computer) or even hook the VCR up to the camera and the camera up to the computer at the same time and record directly onto the computer (in iMovie, for example).

By: Zippo Lighters

Zippo Lighters — Mon, 12 May 2008 09:57:11 +0000

Good article, I’m going to be doing this to some old VHS tapes soon and I’ll be referring back to this guide when I get there. Thanks for the tips.

By: Weird Harold

Weird Harold — Mon, 12 May 2008 03:19:43 +0000

Here’s the best plan. Go to Best Buy – pick up a $200 VHS to DVD recorder. It’s got a slot for a VHS tape, and a slot for a blank DVD. Put the tape in, put the DVD in, hit record.

You’ve got thirty days to try out the recorder at Best Buy. So if you’re not satisfied after dubbing all of your VHS tapes to DVD, return it.

By: Charles

Charles — Mon, 12 May 2008 00:34:17 +0000

I’m digitising a bunch of VHS tapes today. I have an old Pinnacle “Studio Deluxe” system that came with a PCI analogue video interface (called Pinnacle AV/DV or something?). I have a computer with that card set up with a VCR and I save the tapes as raw DV.

Since the computer is quite old I move the DV files to my macbook for encoding. I have to make DVDs for my family, but I keep a good quality h264 version as well. I use visualhub for the encoding. I have some scripts set up to encode to various formats on my linux box but I visualhub was worth it for me to avoid hassle on the macbook.

The only problem I have is that some *really* old VHS tapes cause problems with tracking, I’m going to try a different VCR today to see if I get better playback. A small issue is that the volume always seems very low from the VCR.

By: Nico

Nico — Sun, 11 May 2008 20:11:20 +0000

To use Vista’s movie maker to make a DVD all you have to do is click the publish button and select DVD. It then opens your project up in Windows DVD Maker. Windows DVD maker is pretty idiot proof and easy to use

By: Tony

Tony — Sun, 11 May 2008 19:54:27 +0000

Recordable DVDs and CD’s are available as “archival media.” These are not typically the ones you buy at your local store. The cheap CD’s have been known to lose bits in a year or so. In general, an archival quality DVD will outlast a hard disk. (They are used by the Library of Congress to archive video and audio.) So transferring to a cheap media is a mistake. You are more likely to lose data than if you kept it on a magnetic tape, which degrades rather than becomes potentially unreadable.

Tony

By: Charles Laughlin

Charles Laughlin — Tue, 06 May 2008 04:17:38 +0000

I’m the founder of The Photo Archival Company. A staffer alerted me to this article since our company was mentioned.

First, I wish to thank the author for the kind mention. Secondly, I wanted to take the opportunity to clarify some of the Costco questions that are posted in this blog.

Costco does not perform the 8mm film, slide scanning or videotape conversions in house. The Costco member drops off their media at the local warehouse and it gets forwarded to another company for processing, namely YesVideo. All of this has been communicated through recent press releases, as of April 2008, both through Costco and YesVideo channels.

Costco has accepted videos for conversion at select warehouse locations (i.e. Seattle area) to prove out their conversion vendor for over one year. They are currently going through a national roll-out.

I’m aware of the Costco status as The Photo Archival Company has been talking with Costco, for better than a year, in hopes we could become their exclusive conversion partner.

In the end, Costco had already rolled out their single market test program with the other conversion company by the time we got our foot in the door — so the decision was already set by the time we came to the table. Hopefully, Costco’s contract with YesVideo will be a fruitful one. Certainly congratulations are in order for both companies.

About The Photo Archival Company
——————————–
While we would have surely liked to have been selected by Costco, business must move on. The Photo Archival Company continues to expand our business. We now have 5 processing locations across the US, with a 16,000 square foot facility just outside of Atlanta and a new location opening in Salt Lake City in May 2008. A Chicago opening is slated for the summer pending approval from the state of Illinois.

Our services are bulk/wholesale priced and available to the general public. We charge less than larger retailers because buying from us is buying direct. We perform all work in house.

Family media preservation is the bulk of our business. But we have also performed work for the US government, “independent” 1-hour photo labs, universities, a Hollywood studio, a NYC theater group, television stations and many more.

One of the Fortune 500 CEOs was so delighted with the work we did for their company; he hired us to convert his own personal video collection.

No matter how large or small, we are delighted to work personally with each customer to meet their own unique and personalized needs. I humbly invite you to visit our website (http://ThePhotoArchivalCo.com). We’d love a chance to earn your business and help you preserve, share and archive your own media collection.

To the posters who are concerned with media longevity: perhaps our archival program is for you?

With Regards,
Charles

By: Melinda

Melinda — Sun, 04 May 2008 05:56:14 +0000

Hard drives can deteriorate over time too. I suppose if I was doing this…and I will eventually, I would be storing on hard drive and having some dvds that I would store in a cool dark part of my cupboard as a back up.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Sat, 03 May 2008 17:14:37 +0000

I bought an ADS DVD Xpress USB box, which does the converting. It works very well, and so does the packaged software…when it works. It required a few uninstall/reinstalls before I got it to work, and I transferred my irreplaceable karaoke tapes, as well as the 1993-ish Star Wars LD box set (before Lucas started “tweaking” them with special f/x clutter).

Regular DVD’s have a 2 hour storage limitation, but if you try to extend (<3 mpbs bitrate), it just looks awful. I haven’t found much benefit to the variable bit-rate option, and encoding to Video CD format doesn’t make sense.

I went from a 6 foot bookcase filled with video tapes to a single CD album that’s not much bigger than a textbook!

Just as a warning, purge before you backup. I had kept 10 years worth of Motorweek (~180 hours worth) and other crap. Let go!

Good luck.