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VHS to PC transfer

T

Tony Fordham

Junior Member
Hi guys/gals,

I'll start off by saying that I've never attempted anything along these lines before, so if I'm being really dumb, apologies!

I want to transfer some old videos onto my PC, and ultimately onto DVD where they'll be a bit more long-lasting. The PC to DVD part is obviously, a doddle. What's puzling me is how to get my stuff off of VHS and onto my PC!

I have a Sapphire Radeon 9700 Pro which has S-Video out, DVI and VGA ports, and instructions on how to hook up to a VHS player in the manual. Is that sufficient to capture VHS, or do I need something completely different? I kind of get the impression that the link-up 'explained' in the manual is more for recording from the PC to VHS, than the other way around. And just as importantly, what software do I need if my current setup will record from a VHS player?

I've tried googling but I'm not really sure what I'm looking for so I'm not getting many results! Any assistance/links you could provide would be great! 😀

Cheers in advance,

Tony
 
many VHS tapes are copy protected (send junk during the blanking periods) and you normally won't be able to record the video input from a VHS recorder correctly. (eg: on my FX5900 video card... when I played back the recorded input, it had a large grey rectangle coveriing most of the picture.) You can watch it fine while the player is inputing, but the recordings were borked.

I got a Hauppauge 250PVR tuner card and now I can record my VSH tapes (protected or not) just fiine.
 
Some say that VHS tapes actually last longer than DVDs but at degraded quality. I'm not sure if I believe that. The best way archive data is on magnetic storage such as a hard drive.
 
No. Digital magnetic storage degrades quickly, making the data COMPLETELY unusuable. Analog magnetic storage shows how fast the loss goes, just listen to an audio tape you recorded two months ago.

If you want to archive stuff, you need sturdy optical media, even better magneto-optical. CDR and DVDR aren't.

Anyway, what you need is a video input somewhere on your PC - either on a VIVO-equipped graphics card, or, better, on a PCI TV card. That'll give you a tuner as well, and you get to keep it when you update the graphics card.

Recommended: Lifeview FlyTV Platinum. $38 at newegg.
 
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