Advice on digitising VCR tape

[Brian Gaff]

Yes, common problem is a dodgy clutch on the take up side that occasionally stops spewing tape into the works. Its supposed to auto shut off of course, supposed to.. ahem.

I've seen adverts for usb dongles that claim to be able to do this sort of thing, but I have no idea if they are any good. I'd imagine the variable timebase issues due to mechanical tape movement could upset some recording systems. However a person on another group did say that some commercial companies can do wonders with the quality of old videos using some kind of software that sharpens images, makes colour more stable and sorts out the wobble problem to some extent.

Costs a bit though. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

The main issues with the video 8 was that some used belts no longer around and there was some talk of the heads, which are, like video 2000 machines, mounted on piezo electric elements can actually fall to bits. Not enough life testing you see.. Brian

[Bill]

In message , "Dave Plowman (News)" writes

I have also used the same system with PAL tapes. All I can say is that until I started using the pass-through method via the camcorder, I had problems with audio/video sync and stable pictures. Somewhere in the distant past I asked online about this and was told that the camcorder sorted out things like black level and sync pulses.

It does need the camcorder and a computer that does firewire.

There are a bunch of YouTubes showing this, e.g.