VHS/DVD recorder combi units - recommendations

NRGMAN

Anyone used or even own one?

I am completely clueless in this area. As is my brother who has posed the question. Essentially, he has stacks of VHS material he wants to convert to disc. It's gonna cost him a small fortune to arrange for this to be done professionally so would seemingly make economic sense to purchase his own unit for the pupose. Then he could do the conversions at his leisure.

Can anyone recommend a make and model number which could take care of this? Assuming, of course, that buying such a contraption is an option.

Thank you!

outtatune

Do an ebay search for dvd vhs recorder panasonic there are loads listed. My dad used to inexplicably buy these all-in-one things for everyday use. They tend to be the worst of all worlds but your only realistic option for copying stuff from one format to another.

km1500

are you sure the best thing to do.is vhs -> disc ?

if it were me I would do vhs -> mp4

NRGMAN

km1500 said:

are you sure the best thing to do.is vhs -> disc ?

if it were me I would do vhs -> mp4

Ok, will put that to him. I am guessing then a simple SCART to (possibly) USB conne tion or otherwise and a program/app to take care of the transfer. Is that what you have in mind?

Thanks!

km1500

search ebay or amazon for usb video capture device

yes plug one end of the cable into the player and the other end into usb socket on laptop.

start the capture program on laptop, press 'play' on the player and it will produce an mp4 file on your laptop hdd in real.time

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/115461077601?epid=19035902859&hash=item1ae2043a61:g:w5kAAOSwIqlixVwR&amdata=enc:AQAHAAAA4EEPfKlx5WPdKCeuU8y2cQdzT9Dw2yNm8iGrRwsp1B1bz4r/8TQiSAdNgRYT0N/XGy6t+SBJc5oCdgK3I01PNxLmp5hI9S3G/kak7wx21tFiEtY0n1wn/NBurWVn0D0ksXG/WHz+RlQWOB48ycn0jV0O2l1voglDTad3yAWP5ObPwBVZvUtqQzQeTdPheNrWrROGopjz1nLTk4HL1dD6/Nx8gMttP41CyuZguhif421p2hhZMoLR/HGoRGM6whb7b0z7KCBLbSgMn096hgSAFh0u77pEsP92WZrZqfdYIXUZ|tkp:BFBM5sWzqrlh

chrisw

Just a word of warning. I decided to do the same with my home videos.

By the time I'd finished the second one I'd lost the will to live. It copies in real time. I only have about a dozen so I'm going to bite the bullet and pay a local computer company to put them on a usb stick for £5 per tape. 

Life's too short!

DullGreyGuy

Have you actually watched any of these tapes recently?

VHS was poor quality and designed for watching on the size of screens around at the time... the average home TV back when VHS ruled was about 21" where as now its over 45" and can be over 80". Add to that the impact of time on the magnetic material and many tapes really are fairly unwatchable 

What is the content? Presumably family cinecam recordings? If its commercial movies etc then bite the bullet and just rebuy them, ideally at least blue-ray if you prefer physical media or HD/4K if streaming.

km1500

Good point - if it is irreplaceable precious family movies of your grandchildren as toddlers then definitely copy them to mp4 and they will be fixed in quality forever

if it's a copy of die hard 2 or whatever then bite the bullet and buy the film again

NRGMAN

It's footage of his son and daughter when they were children. I don't reckon it will be possible now anyway as what km1500 suggested involves a disc install and the laptop has no disc drive, sadly.

SiliconChip

NRGMAN said:

It's footage of his son and daughter when they were children. I don't reckon it will be possible now anyway as what km1500 suggested involves a disc install and the laptop has no disc drive, sadly.

Buy a USB optical drive, they're in the region of £20 on Amazon, I have one just in case I ever need it.

NRGMAN

Thank you, everyone. 😁