You should have 4GB or more of RAM and at least 15GB of hard drive space available. Most computers sold in the last few years will have the basic system requirements needed for dealing with the digital version of your VHS recording.
It comes with a USB video capture device, USB Cable, RCA AV Cable, Quick Start Guide, Installation Software CD and step-by-step instructions. It can also record audio from your cassettes and LP records to create WMA files or audio CDs. This hardware/software combo can capture VHS, Beta, 8mm or camcorder tapes and convert them to DVD or other digital formats.
This unit is no longer manufactured, but you can still find them for sale online.Īnother option is the VIDBOX Video Conversion for PC or Mac.
These devices may be more cost effective than a video camera and a little easier to use. You connect the VCR to the device with a standard red/white/yellow cable and then connect the device to your computer with a USB cable. Basically, this is an external device that takes the place of the video camera in the previous scenario. Special devices like the DVD Xpress Video Converter from ADS Tech make it easy to transfer directly from VHS tape to a DVD disc. This is a slow process because it is a re-recording of what is on the tape to the DVD or digital format, but it is fairly simple and requires no additional hardware if you already own a video camera.
Each camera works a bit differently, so follow the instructions in your video camera's manual for recording from an auxiliary input. Usually it just requires hooking up a cable (may need to be purchased separately) from the VCR's Video Out port (the red, white, yellow connectors) to the Video In port on the camera and pressing a few buttons. Just about any digital video camera (camcorder) can serve as the tool to help you copy directly from your old VCR into a digital format. If you don't own a machine that can play VHS tapes, don't despair - they can still be found! You can find the Samsung DVD-VR375 DVD Recorder VHS Combo and the LG RC897T Multi-Format DVD Recorder and VCR Combo with Digital Tuner at Amazon, and I'm sure you can find used VHS/DVD recorders on Ebay for even less. If you don't need to modify the video (editing, adding chapters and custom menus), this method is the easiest and most direct. A slight variation on this method is to connect your VCR to a separate DVD recorder unit. If you own a combination DVD and VCR player/recorder, it's almost painless to pop in the VHS tape and a blank DVD, press a few buttons and directly record the old tape to a shiny new DVD disc. Let's look at them one by one and then you'll be ready to choose the one that's best for you. You have several options to when converting VHS to DVD.