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Ask Slashdot: Which VHS Player To Buy?
stkpogo (799773) writes "I have several old VHS tapes that I'd like to digitize but my old VHS machine died years ago. What's a good VHS player to get so I can make nice clean digital videos from my old tapes before they're gone? I have a few TV -> USB adapters." How would you go about this, especially with tapes (like old home movies) you might be worried about sticking into a low-end VCR? And with what number of tapes does it make sense to outsource the digitizing?
It was like my first first post.
Buy a broadcast-quality Sony player from eBay.
BTW remember to retension the tapes, which means to rewind the tape, then wind it to the end of the reel, then rewind it again.
And with what number of tapes does it make sense to outsource the digitizing?
evaluate the cost of a vcr and the amount of time you have to transfer, I cannot provide a value to your time then compare it to the cost of outsourcing and make choice.
I am working on a similar project with old VHS movie, if you can pick up a SVHS deck, that will help. Anything prosumer is good too. I just picked up 2 Panasonic AG1980P and that is supposed to be one of the better decks for such a purpose. I found them on goodwill's website! Hopefully they work. These have TBCs (time based correctors) which are supposed to correct issues with the picture due to damaged or old tapes, etc.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/produ... "Toshiba DVR620 DVD/VHS Recorder" Highly recommend it. Read reviews and follow fellow buyers recommendations and its fantastic. Non-tech users can be taught to use it as well.
...you want to go Betamax.
I've had good luck with an Ion cassette-to-USB deck for ripping an old tape collection to digital on the computer. They've got a VHS-to-USB one as well: http://www.ionaudio.com/products/details/vcr-2-pc.
The number of heads only matters if the content was recorded at SLP/EP speed. On a 4-head VCR, 2 wider heads are optimized for SP playback, and the other two narrower heads are optimized for SLP/EP.
$ man woman *
-bash:
I've converted several old family VHS (and Beta/Hi8) tapes to digital. In my experience, s-video output makes a much bigger quality difference than the type or quality of player. Composite video (the yellow plug in the yellow, red, white RCA triplet) combines both luminosity (brightness) and chroma (color) into one signal, resulting in a lot of crosstalk (the shimmering "marching ants" when you display high-contrast lines and borders). S-video keeps these signals separate so there is no cross-talk. Makes for a much cleaner transfer to digital.
Of course if the original tape was recorded using a composite signal, then there's nothing you can do.
2 head VCRs are SP only. 4 head VCRs add two heads for EP. If all of your content is SP then a 2 head VCR should suffice. Depending upon the quality of the audio you want to present you might consider either stereo or Hi-Fi. Whatever VCR you choose should have manual tracking adjustment.
For capturing content on a Windows box I cannot recommend the Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250 highly enough. That capture card should also be compatible with MythTV.
The output from my current consumer grade 4 head Panasonic Omnivision (mono audio) VCR was friggin amazing. My wife had a selection of out of print VHS tapes and I captured them with that card. She was missing one tape and while searching for it I found a three pack of DVDs, one of which matched what she was missing and two of which matched what she had. I had to look at the output frame by frame to see if there was any perceptible difference between the Hauppauge output and the DVD. There was none.
Even with normal recordings from home there can be issues with the picture quality. If you have problems with the video becoming lighter and darker that my not be a copy protection issue (obviously as you are working with home movies). Consider purchasing a Digital video stabilizer. The guys at the electronics repair shop nearby recommend ones by MCM Electronics to help mitigate transfer issues.
Tossing your MPEG-2 output from the Hauppauge through the NLE of your choice might help with noise reduction (I use NeatVideo> and color skew. YMMV.
"Giving money and power to governments is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." - P.J. O'Rourke
Get a cheap, new VHS player. It's higher quality than the expensive ones were 30 years ago. Something like Toshiba SD-V296. A used one will probably work, but you're taking a chance that it's sold because it's unreliable.
evaluate the cost of a vcr and the amount of time you have to transfer, I cannot provide a value to your time then compare it to the cost of outsourcing and make choice.
Include the cost of your time in dealing with the outsourcing service, too.
There's also the issues of:
- what values you put on letting others see your tapes,
- the risk of them making copies,
- whether anything you want to tansfer is copyright-encumbered and the service wouldn't copy that for you.
- the relative likelyhood of quality transfers and tape damage when done by a professional service versus do-it-yourself. They have the experience but you have the personal involvement.
You need to evaluate these as well.
(I often do things myself rather than hire them done because I'm more comfortable blaming myself than someone else if something breaks - even if breakage due to my efforts may be more likely. I also enjoy learning new skills and technical trivia, even if I'm unlikely to use them again later, and surprising situations keep coming up where some tidbit turns out to be useful.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I had some VHS tapes converted to DVD at Walmart. Cost was about $20 for 2 tapes. Took about a week. Results are quite good, considering the VHS tapes were made from old 8mm movies going back to the late 40's. At the time I looked at doing it myself, but decided my time was worth more than $20.
Fuck BETA!
Send your VHS tapes into a company and have them do it. They have much better equipment than you can afford, and it saves you the hassle of having to find a recorder and do it yourself. I recently sent VHS tapes + 8mm reels + slides in to a company to have them digitized. The results were incredible. I have a VCR and a capture card, as well as a slide projector and a slide scanner, but the quality of their high end equipment was unbelievable. I didn't realize an old slide could hold such high quality photographs, and the scans my little slide scanner made were not even approaching the quality of theirs.
Have a company digitize your tapes. If the content on them is meaningful to you, you won't regret it.
Yes and analog tapes are also quite good for long term storage - you can store a tape for 20-30 years without a problem, while digital media (other than digital tapes) cannot be stored for this long, they need constant copying.
I did about 15-20 of them last year, some of them Macrovision protected. I used an Hauppauge PVR-150 capture card (didn't seem to mind Macrovision like my Theatre 550), or I could have used my video stabiliser.
I used two vcrs. A really nice JVC from around 1986 (HR-830U) for most of the tapes with the PVR-150. for some of the tapes where I couldn't get audio from both channels (mangled tape), I used a Samsung VHS/DVD combo since that one allowed me to force left or right on both channels (but no manual tracking).
Most important thing, be prepared to clean the machine quite a bit using a wet cleaning system, not the abrasive ones, as those old tapes could flake (or be dirty). For capture, I used DVD movie factory (came with an old burner) and Video Redo (trial) for commercial removal and editing. Figure about 2GB/hour on DVD Quality (not worth going higher since it's only VHS.
If it's an old VCR, be prepared to replace straps as some of them might have dried out or decomposed / broken (like I'm about to do on the old Beta, one of them is slipping).
As someone else said in the thread, some home movies might have issues with white balance, a video stabiliser is helpful to help fix that issue...
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
Good point. Get two.
Not always. Heads are used for many things. The first 4 head units were done for better pause action not for better EP mode.
If you are playing back a regular 2 hour mode tape and don't care about the sound almost anything that was good quality will work. If you need good sound and the original was done in HIFI you should make sure the new deck you get is HIFI as well.
My last good VCR was an 8 head unit. 2 for SP, 2 for SLP/EP, 2 for better pause and 2 for HIFI sound.
Not always. Heads are used for many things. The first 4 head units were done for better pause action not for better EP mode.
Was this right after "Basic Instinct" came out on VHS? ;-)
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
There is a lot of variability throughout the years with Sony VHS players. Back in the early '90s, the quality was very good (and I paid 700 dollars for a VHS/HiFi deck). Later, when they started outsourcing to China, their quality went to crap (early 2000 vintage). I own both decks FWIW.
This is because the data density is so low. However, modern media (recordable CDs, DVDs, hard drives, flash memory) do not hold onto their data for very long. Hard drives might retain the magnetization, but their mechanical parts can wear out (if it's on all the time) or just fail (if it's off all the time, heads can stick or lubrication can harden and it's not like you can oil the hard drive like a floppy or tape drive).
OTOH, analog tape (video or audio) retains the data for very long time (I have a tape recorded in 1951 and it still plays OK) and the machines that play it can be maintained and repaired and are still quite available (used).
I tried something similar with some audio cassettes a few years ago, and found that I was too late: the tape had begun to stick together, and required more power than my high-end Denon tape deck could muster to play back. Rewinding didn't work either, as there's a tape tension sensor that shuts down the motor if it gets overloaded.
Yes, and unlike more modern tapes it is made of paper, the brand name is "Soundmirror". The paper tape can snap in some tape decks (like the Revox A77), but in a tape deck with servo tension or on that has one motor (the tension is lower on these) it plays OK. It was recorded full track, but it looks like only in the center - if played on a 4 track tape deck, only the right channel plays.
Not always. Heads are used for many things. The first 4 head units were done for better pause action not for better EP mode.
Was this right after "Basic Instinct" came out on VHS? ;-)
If you want porn, watch porn. What the point on pausing a movie to hopefully see some cunt's crotch.
Because you're 13 and internet didn't exist yet, pausing a movie was the best you got.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Your old tape probably has a very thick oxide layer on a fairly thick backing, compared to modern stuff.
Back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, I got my VHS blank tapes from a guy who bought it straight from TDK -- at the time that was the only place I could find their best retail tape, which was about half again 'thicker' than standard consumer tape (and cost about half again as much, too). Per what he told me, this was basically the seconds from their studio-grade tape, and it was still miles above standard tape. When you're recording off a weak over-the-air signal, tape quality makes a huge difference.
At the far end of the scale, you couldn't give me Kodak tapes.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
The things Star Wars fans have to put up with just to watch some movies...
I know it was intended as funny, but the internet search term that will help here is "Harmy Despecialized Editions."