Looking for reliable VHS to DVD conversion services

p_anotherguy

Hi everyone,

My father's birthday is approaching and I would like to give him a special gift by converting his old VHS tape collection to DVD, so that he can watch his old tapes on the TV.

He doesn't have a VCR player anymore and doesn't plan to buy a new one. I think he’d be really happy with a gift like this. Any suggestions from your end?

MyRealNameToo

Presumably these are home videos and not commercial material?

p_anotherguy

MyRealNameToo said:

Presumably these are home videos and not commercial material?

They should be home videos that he recorded with memories of our family. I'm not sure, though, if he has any commercial material as well. Unfortunately, I don't have a recorder to check the content.

pseudodox

Just be aware that the DVDs you/whoever creates might not play on the TV.  I have an old VHS/DVD machine that can copy to/from each media but disks I made from some old "home movie" VHS tapes of my late father (previously copied from his video camera tapes) will not play direct by slotting into the TV.  The TV will only play "commercial" original DVDs.  One very good reason I am hanging onto that old machine, so I can watch the old tapes and disks by connecting it to the TV (which still has scart sockets).

MyRealNameToo

p_anotherguy said:

MyRealNameToo said:

Presumably these are home videos and not commercial material?

They should be home videos that he recorded with memories of our family. I'm not sure, though, if he has any commercial material as well. Unfortunately, I don't have a recorder to check the content.

Looking at the labels should make it reasonably clear at least to tell if it's a copy of the Matrix or X's 1st birthday. Potentially stuff recorded of the TV may be a bit more of a grey area.

pseudodox said:

Just be aware that the DVDs you/whoever creates might not play on the TV.  I have an old VHS/DVD machine that can copy to/from each media but disks I made from some old "home movie" VHS tapes of my late father (previously copied from his video camera tapes) will not play direct by slotting into the TV.  The TV will only play "commercial" original DVDs.  One very good reason I am hanging onto that old machine, so I can watch the old tapes and disks by connecting it to the TV (which still has scart sockets).

My guess would be that the device isnt finalising the disc so you can use up the last of the space on it for other stuff. Computers can always handle unfinalised discs but many CD players and DVD can't. It could also be that it's recording it as a movie file rather than how DVDs are normally recorded but think thats less likely.


Have personally used Digital Convertors and they were ok but there are many places that offer it and imagine the likes of Tesco/Max Spielmann are probably ok too. 

The one word of caution... VHS is fairly often 360i and at best 480i resolution and was generally playing on TVs under 24". It wasnt a great picture when brand new let alone after the magnetic tape has been sitting there for years. Putting that onto a 55" 2160p screen makes it look like you are viewing it through candy wrappers or such and whilst it may be watchable for the sake of the memories it is fairly poor. 

Whilst we have all seen video editing and it looks great etc thats a lot easier when dealing with film stock not magnetic tapes. You may find it better to find the more important tapes and pay more for them to be dealt with than paying a low fee to have all them converted and then find its all junk. 

pseudodox

I did finalise my disks after initially finding they would not play, but it made no difference.  I guessed there was some sort of coding in the TV that just would not allow home recordings.  But that is not to say it is not different for someone else.  But I just wanted to warn against spending £££ on conversions only to find they don't work.  Best to try one sample first.

Rob5342

I've used this place lots of times. Don't let the unbelievably crude website put you off, it's run by a very experienced engineer who maintains the machines himself, his YouTube channel gives a much better idea of what he is like than the website does. Every time I've used him he's done a great job, got the transfers done in a day and personally emailed me to give an update on the progress.

DVD's are very old fashioned now, he'll still do them but you would be much better off downloading the mp4s or getting him to put them on a usb stick which is his main way of working. There is obviously a limit to how good decades old VHS tapes will look on a large modern TV, but for priceless memories you can overlook that. 

https://www.video99.co.uk/

https://www.youtube.com/@video99couk

twopenny

It's not mse but our local photography shop offers this service. Send out. But they can tell you what will work and what won't.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

https://www.amazon.co.uk/VHS-Digital-Converter-Camcorder-Compatible/dp/B0CPLBJGP4/

Something like this any good OP? 

Might be cheaper to buy this and a VHS player than £13.50 an hour to pay someone to convert the tapes, especially if you don’t know what’s on them.

p_anotherguy

pseudodox said:

I did finalise my disks after initially finding they would not play, but it made no difference.  I guessed there was some sort of coding in the TV that just would not allow home recordings.  But that is not to say it is not different for someone else.  But I just wanted to warn against spending £££ on conversions only to find they don't work.  Best to try one sample first.

Thanks, I didn’t know that a problem like this could occur. However, you mentioned that you did the digitising yourself. I hope that with professional companies, things like that won’t happen. But I’ll be careful and compare different services first.

p_anotherguy

Rob5342 said:

I've used this place lots of times. Don't let the unbelievably crude website put you off, it's run by a very experienced engineer who maintains the machines himself, his YouTube channel gives a much better idea of what he is like than the website does. Every time I've used him he's done a great job, got the transfers done in a day and personally emailed me to give an update on the progress.

DVD's are very old fashioned now, he'll still do them but you would be much better off downloading the mp4s or getting him to put them on a usb stick which is his main way of working. There is obviously a limit to how good decades old VHS tapes will look on a large modern TV, but for priceless memories you can overlook that. 

https://www.video99.co.uk/

https://www.youtube.com/@video99couk

Does he have a table with the prices?