New Video Converter

[DodgebyDave]

I have a bunch of VHS tapes, collecting dust. Not to mention the stupid bookcase space they take up (that would be better served helping books collect dust).

So I went looking for a video converting device. I settled on one of these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16815306013



So far it's as advertised and simple to install and use. About 10 minutes to the first posted converted video.

TAPE FREE AT LAST!

[Weatherman]

I purchased a similar item (link below) on sale for $14, and it works very well to convert video tapes to computer files. One added benefit is that the included software lets me watch TV on the computer by way of the VCR tuner.

http://www.meritline.com/showproduct...-video-capture

[gringott]

You guys are behind the times. Leaving tape is soooo yesteryear. I am 100% digital, no DVDs, no BR.

[dogman]

You guys are behind the times. Leaving tape is soooo yesteryear. I am 100% digital, no DVDs, no BR.

Some have mountains of tapes that are on shelf's and quietly deteriorating. Some there are no dvd's that have been made, yet! Plus who wants to pay twice?

Bought a usb tv tuner card for my laptop ,and converting other a/v formats and burning dvd's is a option, I will be using someday with my tapes.

[DodgebyDave]

I have known about these gadgets for a while. Just been too busy to do anything about it.

Back in the day when I was racing all the time I'd give the GF a stack of tapes with the request of "if you feel like it tape stuff that's interesting". 800 some odd tapes of this story, going back to at least 1988. Car races, movies, basketball.

One in particular I'm looking for is a documentary from around 1981(?) I taped called "An American Adventure: The Rocket Pilots" that was on NBC and according to interbuttz legend the Network master was inadvertently destroyed. The last I searched the innertubes for it was unobtanium.

It's my duty to bring this classic to download, mostly because it elevates Scott Crossfield to the historic place he deserves.

[Goldhedge]

I've used the "Dazzle" converter with great success.


An art teacher wanted to show an art video to high schoolers, but it contained some objectionable material, so I ripped it and pulled the nasty stuff out using MSFTs movie maker program.

It worked great!

[DodgebyDave]

That's all good hedge, but, first I have to go from analog to digital.

I'm too old for all of this format switching. Someone needs to pick one and decide.

So far out of 5 tapes reviewed one is broken and the other 4 are full of readily available movies.

[Fiat Metaler]

I've used the "Dazzle" converter with great success.


An art teacher wanted to show an art video to high schoolers, but it contained some objectionable material, so I ripped it and pulled the nasty stuff out using MSFTs movie maker program.

It worked great!

please provide details about MSFT's movie maker program - free or pay? do you recommend? cost?

[Sport]

My wife had a bunch of VCR tapes from wen she was a kid. I converted them to DVD using one of those VCR/DVD recorder combos. It worked ok and was just a one button copy operation. Quality was fine considering the source. I can move them to a hard drive now when I get time.

[Fiat Metaler]

please provide details about MSFT's movie maker program - free or pay? do you recommend? cost?

bump - would like recommendations for video editing software please.

[Weatherman]

bump - would like recommendations for video editing software please.

AVIdemux is free and it works very well for me. I especially like that I can snip out short segments that I want to get rid of. Many other video editors want to mark the segments that I want to keep, and then I need to stitch those good segments back to make one file, but that process is inconvenient and undesirable. For the rare file formats that AVIdemux does not easily work with, I first use the free version of Any Video Converter to convert the file to MPEG4 (best quality and smallest file size). Then AVIdemux makes editing that file easy.

[DodgebyDave]

My wife had a bunch of VCR tapes from wen she was a kid. I converted them to DVD using one of those VCR/DVD recorder combos. It worked ok and was just a one button copy operation. Quality was fine considering the source. I can move them to a hard drive now when I get time.

I thought about springing for a decent Sony. The thing is though, I don't want to kill anymore vcr's than required for this project. I have already killed one and I have 2 more VCRs and about 450 tapes to go. The plan is to kill the last existing VCR on the last tape, then the debate is to fool with selling the tapes or feeding the dumpster. Only one broken tape so far, when I rewound it pulled loose. Fixable.

One thing I found is that my olde laptop is too slow and doesn't transfer for squat.

I was wondering about file size versus quality. Played around with a couple of the different formats, that information saves me time, muchos grassyass seniors.

[DodgebyDave]

I have discovered that my download speed in quite modern, my upload speed is slower than frame by frame stone tablet animation.

[dacrunch]

I bought a $5 converter off eBay... was real choppy and took up tons of gigs per home movie copied... so I went to Walmart & bought the $60 Roxio converter, worked perfectly...

[DodgebyDave]

Been reviewing tapes today. I'm now convinced more than ever Hollywierd just keeps making the same crappy movies over and over.

[Goldhedge]

please provide details about MSFT's movie maker program - free or pay? do you recommend? cost?

Sorry, didn't see this til now!

Movie Maker is a free program from MSFT. It comes with XP SP2 I believe, but it's on every MSFT OS since from what I recall.

As for going analog to digital? I was going from VHS tape to digital using the Dazzle converter. That is what it does!

You need a VHS player, a Dazzle device and a computer. You play the video into Dazzle and it sends it to the PC.

I used Movie Maker to 'capture' the output of Dazzle.

That's all there is to it.

The only negative is that it records in "real time" - which means if the video is 2 hrs long, it takes 2 hrs to copy it.