Does DMS have the capability to convert old VHS tapes to digital files (MP4, et al?). I have some 20+ year old home movies (mostly baby vids of my daughter) that I’d like to get put into a more modern format.
If DMS does NOT have the equipment to do this, does someone know of a service they could recommend? I see that Costco, Walgreens, and others offer this as a mail-off service. I’d prefer someone who could do it locally.
This would be an awesome service to have at DMS! I’m all for it.
I think I have a Sony VHS player/DVD burner that I got to do this. Then, of course, haven’t done so. Yet.
This gets kicked around occasionally; no idea if anything ever sprung out of these discussions, but here are some randomly selected from the search “vhs to digital”:
https://talk.dallasmakerspace.org/t/vhs-to-dvd-conversion/1371
All of you should think seriously about doing this yourselves. Digital tapes deteriorate over time, with an average life of 35 years; they deteriorate at a rate of 10-20% over a course of 10-25 years. Photos and documents also need to be scanned and restored for the same reason. I’m doing this myself now.
A year ago, I picked up a $40 adapter (Adesso Video Capture Express AV-200) from Fry’s that has eMPIA’s EM2861 chipset (e.g., easycap). It accepts composite, rca, and s-video as inputs and captures at MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4 in up to 720x480 resolution. It’s basically a very cheap video card. This particular hardware isn’t expressly compatible with Windows 10, and the capture software application it came bundled-with didn’t understand my composite video input (the yellow plug, not the red and white ones for audio). I had to spend $10 on a 3-month license for NCH’s Debut Video Capture software to get that adapter to work right. You’ll also need a really big hard drive or two, since capturing uncompressed video for relatively lossless editing creates enormous files. Also, I have collected four VCRs from friends and family, but none of them has an s-video-out connector.
I’m learning that there’s a whole lot of knowledge that’s helpful in doing this right. One should learn the basics of formats, analog vs. digital, color correction, noise artifact reduction, and probably more that I haven’t understood that I needed. I know we’ve got Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effects for video editing and correction, so hopefully I can mitigate the effects of bad lighting, overexposure, color fading, speckles, and visual noise. Maybe one day I could teach a class on this or recruit an expert who could. Maybe we could also collect equipment like a professional-quality capture card and old cameras for transfer capability.
Message me if you have questions. 
David, it’s not the best timing, but there is a Digital Media meeting on Sunday at 3. Personally I would love to see this capability in the new Digital Media space.
I think I’ll try to make this one. DT
Sorry to resurrect an ancient thread, but I’m interested in digitizing old home movies on VHS soon.
Does DMS indeed have the capability to do this?
We ended up taking ours to a commercial company in Plano: https://www.replicopy.com
Make sure you indicate whether you want video or data DVD formats (or both). I didn’t, so I ended up needing to use the HandBrake open source video transcoder (https://handbrake.fr) to convert the video DVD files to MP4 once the initial conversion was complete.
I bought a $40 adapter from Fry’s, which I’m happy to lend you, and I’ve got a 6-head (count them! Six heads!) VCR I could lend as well. I also managed to acquire some video editing skills I’d be willing to share.
I didn’t have much luck with Handbrake personally, so I just got a 3 month license to Debut Video Capture software from NCH for $10 and used that. The quality wasn’t perfect – probably because the transcoding was sub-par – but the results were good enough. Really, when you’re talking about home movies, it’s not about the cinematography as much as the voices and faces of younger versions of people you know and love. If this were my problem, I’d try capturing it the cheap way and then decide if you’re unhappy with the results.
If you do go the commercial route, just know that the capturing is the hard, expensive part. Once it’s digitally captured, you have the rest of your life to work on restoration (correcting color, exposure, noise removal), editing, and presentation. You can do that at your own pace, and we’ve got the full Adobe creative suite (Premiere; After Effects; etc.) to work with.