VHS to DVD recorder???

[suzimar57]

i'm looking to transfer my 20+ years worth of home movies (and tv shows) from VHS to DVD

can anyone suggest a VHS to DVD recorder (with tuner)?

looking for something easy to use - help, please!!

 

[bicker]

Do you have a VHS player (that works) now? If so, I wouldn't even entertain the idea of buying a VHS to DVD recorder to transfer your home movies: Instead, just but a DVD recorder, and hook the two together. While it won't be as easy to use, you're going to get a lot more value for your money, that will more than make up for the small amount of extra effort involved.

Right now, Panasonic and Toshiba make the best DVD recorders. (I have a Sony, but I bought it too long ago - back when Sony was as good as Panasonic and Toshiba - so I won't recommend mine.) The other main consideration you should factor in is ensuring that the DVD recorder you purchase has the best INPUTS corresponding to the best OUTPUTS of your VHS player. So if your VHS player has component video outputs, then be sure that your DVD recorder has component video inputs (not just composite/AV, or S-video inputs).

 

[stevenpensacola]

If you can burn dvd/cd's with your computer...all you need is a device to hook your existing vcr (if you have one) to your computer:

something like this:

http://www.amazon.com/Roxio-Easy-VHS-DVD-Mac/dp/B00266PHEK

this is for a mac, I'm sure you can find one for a pc.

 

[NikkiLovesWDW!]

I bought this about a year ago and it was the best hundred bucks I ever spent! Not only did I transfer all my old home videos (and even some disney world planning videos from the mid-90s), you can also record from the TV onto a DVD. Oh and it plays both VHS and DVD so I have it always hooked up as my DVD player.

Hmmm, it looks like the Magnavox I bought isn't available at best buy anymore but it was something like this samsung.

 

[bicker]

you can also record from the TV onto a DVD.

If you're going to go that far, I'd recommend ensuring that the recorder you buy has an ATSC tuner. The Samsung you linked to didn't appear to.

 

[nexttripdisney]

I just went through this.

Having so many mini-cassettes and mini-DV's I finally pulled them out and watched one last fall (mini-cassette in an adapter). The film was turning pink and fading out. I knew I had to do something FAST.

My VHS player is not operational. This is what I did:

Went to Best Buy to see what machines they had available. It is OLD technology so I had only three choices of machines. I did some research on the web and finally decided on the LG. It was priced in the middle but still cost me between $250-$300. I know that's a lot but I think it's worth it. To have all my tapes done professionally would cost me a thousand dollars or more.

And--now I have a VHS player for all those old tapes and a DVD player to hook up to a TV that didn't have one before.

It's worked well, although time-consuming since the machine copies the tapes in real-time. I also checked right away to make sure the newly-recorded DVD's play on my computer and other machines and they DO.

 

[bicker]

Just a warning related to that; short of storage in a place with nasty electro-magnetic fields, data will last longer and in a more reliably usable condition on tape than on disc. Don't ever rely on a DVD as your one and only storage for some irreplaceable photo or video.

 

[nexttripdisney]

Just a warning related to that; short of storage in a place with nasty electro-magnetic fields, data will last longer and in a more reliably usable condition on tape than on disc. Don't ever rely on a DVD as your one and only storage for some irreplaceable photo or video.

Uggggh. So what's the solution? The tape turning pink is only 14 years old. Make DVD's and re-copy them every 10 years?

 

[bicker]

Uggggh. So what's the solution? The tape turning pink is only 14 years old. Make DVD's and re-copy them every 10 years?

That would work, but just be sure you're not losing data by converting the files from their source format to DVD-video. You may be better-off using DVD-data format, to just copy the data files off the tape onto the discs.

Backing up the source files for all your photos and videos to a service like Carbonite would do the trick, too.