We would like to convert some videos into dvd’s. What is involved in this and can we do it ourselves?
I found a media place to do it for me for $100. You have to have a vhs and DVD recorder to do it yourself. Took too long.
I have those. What type of connection do I need? Was the total cost for all of your videos $100?
We borrowed a friend’s device that does the conversion a few years ago but couldn’t figure out how to do it. We still have the device and H keeps saying he’s going to get better directions but I’m not holding my breath.
But are they in one unit that you can record one to the other? Yes…I had like 40 V’HS tapes that were 30-60 minutes each. They condensed them down to about 12 DVDs. $100 for the whole thing. I kept my tapes though.
Where did you have it done for this price?
If you want to do it yourself, look at the outputs from your VCR, most likely it is the RCA cables (the red, white, and yellow ends) or maybe an s-video cable. Then look at your DVDS recorder inputs. Hopefully they match. If the don’t youlll have to get a cable to convert. For example if your VCR outputs as RCA but your DVD recorder only has an s-video input you can get a cable with one at one end and another at the other end.
Once they are connected, you can set the DVD to record while playing the VCR. I recommend hooking up the DVD to your TV so you can monitor the recording.
If you want to get media files like .avi or .mpg etc. there are connections and software to do this directly to your computer. Or there is software to take the resulting DVD of the method above and extract the video from it.
Hope this helps!
It isn’t that hard, they have VHS players out there with USB output on them last I checked, or you would need either a video board in the pc with composite inputs (the ones that are cylindrical with the red/green/yellow colors). If you have a VHS player with a USB output, then all you would need is recording software on the pc (Nero is one of them), to digitally record the output from the VHS player. After that, the same program likely can burn a DVD, assuming your pc has a DVD burner on it.
That said, it may very well be cheaper and easier to get someone to do that professionally, I get those local offers packs in the mail all the time, and there are places advertising it. You might be able to get a good price on getting them done professionally, and would be a lot cheaper than buying a vhs player, figuring out if you have the other things required, learn the recording software and so forth. Unless you plan on doing this for other people, or plan on buying old VHS tapes for things where the DVD doesn’t exist (which has its own problems, while making a DVD copy of a VHS you bought is legal if it is for yourself, most commercial VHS tapes had copy protection on them which can be a pain to bypass), it likely will be cheaper to do it this one time.
It was not a national company. I think I just googled in my town and started calling around. I also believe there are places you can send them to .
My DIL did it for us hooking up the VCR to her computer (a Mac). We now have all our old home movies on flash drive.
I’ve done thiswith our combo vhs/DVD player, it’s not too hard. I think it’s a Sony unit…
Thanks for all the info
Check if Costco photo still does it. If the lab they used could convert 2 large reels of very brittle 16 mm movies to DVD, converting VHS tapes should be faster and cheaper.
^^^I was going to say check Costco also. In addition, check to see if Groupon has any specials for a “to DVD” in your location - seems locally a couple places offer deals often.
We bought something like this at one time at Costco - never got around to using it and ended up selling it - but I think this will help you do the job at home: http://www.walmart.com/ip/20434695?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=0&adid=22222222227014856721&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=c&wl3=52396895471&wl4=&wl5=pla&wl6=83960480951&veh=sem
My son did this for me for a Christmas present using a VCR recorder I bought for this reason and a device he found on the internet. Just be aware that quality will not be great as you are use to with DVDs and a little bit jumpy. This is because videos are jumpier than the dvds or blue tooth recordings we watch and these video dvds are now being watched on high definition tvs.