A question on converting old VHS to digital?

Jon_01

My mate has about 20 old VHS's. They were bought, not home grown stuff. They're movies that are so old they've never made it to DVD or BR (and they're at the Z end of the catalog).

I'm trying to help him find a way to get them onto either dvd or a usb stick.

Now I know I need an A&D converter like this; https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00XHOHRPW/?!!!!!ho01f-21
And a scart to phono set to go from the VHS deck to the converter. But, will modern converters handle the VHS signal if it has the old Macrovision copy protect on it?
(Not sure of the legal bit here, all of the studios that made these tapes no longer exist, the movies have never appear under anyone else's label or on any other format and the tapes haven't been available for sale in over 20 years. The nearest thing I can compare them too is abandon ware).

Can anyone offer advice?

Thanks

kwikbreaks

I've converted home videos with a similar device and the quality was poor. Macrovision was designed to scupper analogue tape to tape copies so once the signal is digitised may well not be effective but even if that is so the quality will be poor.

I'm surprised you can't find digitised versions of the movies as just about anything that has the slightest chance of selling seems to appear on dvd judging by the remaindered dross you see.

Name a couple of the movies - maybe you aren't looking in the right places for them.

DavidP24

Converting movies is a complete waste of time, the quality will be dire and you can just save yourself the time and expense by downloading them online. Amazon sell some and for the time it takes, it is worth paying.

Ironically I find many old movies on YouTube, you can get plugin on Firefox called Ant Video Downloader.

Otherwise you are in the world of Torrents, downloading torrents is illegal and you absolutely should not do it

You may find that the movies are available on cheap legal subscription channels, your friend may want to look into Plex.tv, it can host all his content and offer subscriptions too.

On Youtube you will see lots of videos for free channels on Kodi, they have ads but that is how they are funded.

Jon_01

I'm waiting for him to email me a list.

It's not a matter of paying for them, he buys anything up a dozen dvd's and BR's a week as it is. He just says that these have never appeared on anything apart from tape when they there first released.

DavidP24

I guess there are a few like that, feel free to post list here or PM it to me.

Mista_C

I used one of those to convert the old 1970s Spiderman TV series and a couple of other non-DVD released movies, including Macrovisioned stuff, and it was OK.

Like Kwikbreaks says, the quality wasn't great but it was watchable. If you want an idea of the quality here's one of the videos I converted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_739DxrMOs
It's for an old boardgame and I was unable to find a DVD or digital version anywhere so converted my VHS cassette.

droopsnoot

I don't know how Macrovision works, but surely the old-style method of connecting a DVD recorder to the SCART output on a VHS player would get around that? If the signal coming out of the VHS player is good enough to display on the TV, then wouldn't the recorder pick it up?


I know what you mean about converting films, though. I spent ages tracking down a film I'd seen on BBC late on night, missed the beginning when I recorded it as it was a few minutes in when I realised it looked good. Tracked down a VHS copy as it was never released on DVD, transferred it to DVD, I think I've probably watched it once. Intended to transfer lots of old stuff like the original TFI Friday series, The White Room and some other stuff that'll probably never be re-shown, but I've done virtually none of it.

AndyPix

I bet my bottom dollar we could find every single one downloadable online

glentoran99

droopsnoot wrote: »

I don't know how Macrovision works, but surely the old-style method of connecting a DVD recorder to the SCART output on a VHS player would get around that? If the signal coming out of the VHS player is good enough to display on the TV, then wouldn't the recorder pick it up?


I know what you mean about converting films, though. I spent ages tracking down a film I'd seen on BBC late on night, missed the beginning when I recorded it as it was a few minutes in when I realised it looked good. Tracked down a VHS copy as it was never released on DVD, transferred it to DVD, I think I've probably watched it once. Intended to transfer lots of old stuff like the original TFI Friday series, The White Room and some other stuff that'll probably never be re-shown, but I've done virtually none of it.

Nah, soon as you press record the picture messes up, no idea how but it does

DavidP24

AndyPix wrote: »

I bet my bottom dollar we could find every single one downloadable online

Exactly, also likely to be better quality.

Chrishazle

I have a Panaonic DVDR/VHS upscaling freeview machine (DMR-EZ48V) that I can copy VHS to DVD (or vice versa). It's time consuming as you first have to figure the exact recording time you need and set that from a choice of 1,2 or 4 hours per DVD (obviously the longer the time the lower the quality) and then the copy happens in real time, so a 90 minute VHS tape will take you close to 2 hours in total to copy to DVD! I've done a few, and the playback quality from the DVD is fine. It's a bit "old tech" so you'll probably find one cheap on Ebay.