Converting VHS to DVD

[1kickassgal]

Anyone convert their own VHS tapes to DVDs?  Thinking of doing this as my Christmas gifts to the family this year.  Any suggestions on dependable machines that do this would be great!  Thanks

[umterp1999]

My wife did this.  I forget the exact name I want to say digitech or something like that.  It's fine.  Obviously the quality of the DVD is the same quality as the VHS.  But its a better way for preservation. Just dont expect bluray quality. 

[$200k]

I used Eyeconnect from Elgato and Elgato software.  Dead simple to use.  Bought and re-sold on ebay for the nearly the same price.  Good comment on picture quality from the above poster.

[ketchup]

I did this years ago.  All I did was connect a competent VCR to a competent DVD recorder.  Not the most wonderful quality in the world on either end, but it did the job. 

The "proper" way to do it would be to get a *really good* VCR, connect its composite output to a bitchin' digital comb filter with a DVI output into a PCI Express capture card, recorded to uncompressed 4:4:4 and then deinterlaced perfectly with custom settings to ensure no errors and maximum detail.  But that's probably overkill.

Any old VCR tethered to any old DVD recorder will do the job.  A cheap PC composite video capture card might get you better quality.

[Nords]

Anyone convert their own VHS tapes to DVDs?  Thinking of doing this as my Christmas gifts to the family this year.  Any suggestions on dependable machines that do this would be great!  Thanks

How many are you making?  Costco or a video conversion store might be able to give you a bulk rate, and you might earn more money with the time you save while getting a professional-quality product (or at least a faithful reproduction).

We did this with an eight-hour videocassette of our daughter's early years, and it was a big hit with the relatives. 

[1kickassgal]

Thanks for all the feedback.  I'll look into the costs of getting them professionally transferred, but I thought if I could find a way to do it myself, I could do all of the family tapes, which might be close to 75-100.  Not looking for amazing quality, just trying to preserve some memories.  I'd imagine there's more time with the kids in the pool or at the zoo than one would ever want to sit through :)

[gimp]

Personal videos or movies? I assume personal videos.

[sleepyguy]

You'll need a little "geek" know how.

Probably the cheapest way is.

Get some form of RCA input card... USB one should work fine
Get a working VCR
Get some free opensource vid capture software that works with the card
Capture the video, it will be HUGE
Use free Handbrake to convert it to DVD ISO format, you can create cool menus too!

Burn the disk.

Sounds a bit hard but it isn't.  I converted about 3 boxes of old vhs videos from my parents.  Once setup the repeatable process is very easy. 

I converted mine to MP4 (H264) from to save on space and put it on a DVD, which you could playback with any pc from VLC.