Scart to HDMI Converters?

Jon_01

My friend's in the process of buying a new TV, but he has a lot of old vhs tapes. He's been collecting since the 70's.  

His old TV has a scart socket to connect his vhs player, obviously new TV's don't, so he needs a converter. (Some of the titles have never had a dvd/bluray release, or are extended editions ect).

But, I'm guessing that at least some of these tapes have Macrovision protection on them. Does anyone know how a scart to HDMI Converters would handle this?  Or would they at all?

Thanks.

flaneurs_lobster

How many tapes are we talking about?

Any chance that getting them converted to digital would be a goer? 

Jon_01

flaneurs_lobster said:

How many tapes are we talking about?

Any chance that getting them converted to digital would be a goer? 

There are about 20 to 30, but...

These are all copyrighted titles. I doubt any company would take them in to transfer?

I worked in the industry for 20+ years, we had 2 broadcast standard converters, and we would never convert anything that was under copyright.

Exodi

To be honest, the adapters are relatively cheap and Amazon's return policy is good, it's probably easier just to buy one and then return it if it doesn't work: https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=Scart+to+HDMI+Adapter

MyRealNameToo

Jon_01 said:

My friend's in the process of buying a new TV, but he has a lot of old vhs tapes. He's been collecting since the 70's.  

His old TV has a scart socket to connect his vhs player, obviously new TV's don't, so he needs a converter. (Some of the titles have never had a dvd/bluray release, or are extended editions ect).

But, I'm guessing that at least some of these tapes have Macrovision protection on them. Does anyone know how a scart to HDMI Converters would handle this?  Or would they at all?

SCART was a socket type, it could carry composite, svideo, RGB and component signals. One of the more stupid ideas of the age. So in the first instance find out which formats the VCR supports as there is a notable difference in picture quality. 

Macrovision protection was generally fairly easy to circumvent which is why later formats moved onto other copy protection methods. A half decent convertor should be able to avoid issues from it. Ideally avoid one that is only composite, a number of budget options say they support RGB which is a reasonable step up, probably unlikely they have a component VCR

Rodders53

None of the adapters I've looked at recently (for a LaserDisc user) have RGB / component input... Composite or S-video at best.
All up-convert and deinterlace to 720p or 1080p using similar if not identical chipsets.

Some modern TVs still have one Composite analogue input... Red/Black/Yellow RCA sockets or a 3.5mm 4-pole jack socket.   Converter leads are cheap as chips and the TV should do a better job of the upscale/de-interlace than a cheap hdmi converter.  (It will still be SD 576i with the low vertical resolution of VHS tape though.)

DO check/ensure that the chosen new TV has an analogue A/V input, rather than going the hdmi route.  NB You may need to read the manuals/inspect the TV input panels to find such input as the retailer specs pages don't always mention them.
{e.g. TCL 43P7K-UK | 43 inch QLED 4K Ultra HD HDR Smart TV | Richer Sounds has an AV Adapter 3.5mm jack input}

Then consider ways to digitise those tapes ... second hand DVD-Recorder, perhaps, or similar --- Google will suggest ways to do it and get round the macrovision if necessary.