Techsurvivors

Archives => 2009 => Topic started by: jcarter on November 16, 2009, 08:24:48 AM

Title: Is there a way to play old VHS tapes into a Mac
Post by: jcarter on November 16, 2009, 08:24:48 AM
We have a lot of old VHS tapes, movies, classes, concerts,,,,,that we would like to be able to play on our new large screen Macs. Not the TV.
Is this possible?
Thanks,
Jane
Title: Is there a way to play old VHS tapes into a Mac
Post by: chriskleeman on November 16, 2009, 08:36:37 AM
Hi Jane,

Take a look at This.

Good information here.

HTH,

CK
Title: Is there a way to play old VHS tapes into a Mac
Post by: jcarter on November 16, 2009, 08:50:50 AM
Thank you!  I think I remember seeing that article, but I gave all my older magazines away last week.
The link is great.
But our VHS machine doesnt work any more.  Oh, maybe it does!  The kids got it running.
Quite a complex process though, I will have to read it thru in detail.
Jane
Title: Is there a way to play old VHS tapes into a Mac
Post by: Highmac on November 16, 2009, 09:47:48 AM
Wow - reading through your article, Chris, and came across this:
QUOTE
A 200GB external FireWire hard drive costs less than $300 and will give you enough room for hours of video.

In just five years prices have dropped so far, I bought a 1TB drive for around 100GBP ($160). So five times the space for little more than half the price thumbup.gif

Roxio has a VHS to DVD converter but it seems to be PC only sad.gif
Title: Is there a way to play old VHS tapes into a Mac
Post by: jcarter on November 16, 2009, 10:15:13 AM
Was quite interesting that I called the company which my husband ordered the VHS courses on, its,
www.teach12.com
And since he had several of the math and science ones, they gave us a discount on the DVD versions of the same courses!
I sure was thrilled!  So they will be here by the end of the week. The Geology ones are super!  Especially when he has rafted down the Colorado thru the Grand Canyon, thats a Geology class in itself.

Now for all our old home movies,,,,,,there is the option of playing them at my brother's house.
Title: Is there a way to play old VHS tapes into a Mac
Post by: Paddy on November 16, 2009, 11:16:06 AM
There is a Mac version of the VHS to DVD converter - it just came out this fall:

http://www.roxio.com/enu/products/easy-vhs...c/overview.html

That's tempting! My 14-year old collects Godzilla videos (!) and most of them are on VHS, so putting them on DVD would be great. (for him!) We also have a number of VHS tapes that WE used to like. May have to look into this...

Neil, I just bought a 1TB drive for $110 CDN. That's about £62. Or $105 USD. (WD Caviar Black) You do seem to get dinged by higher prices over there, don't you? And I thought Canada was bad. Was that with or without VAT? Of course, our taxes add a total of 13%.
Title: Is there a way to play old VHS tapes into a Mac
Post by: jcarter on November 16, 2009, 11:49:13 AM
Roxio, the answer!

That might just what would work for our home tapes, I wouldnt bother with the movies that the kids have, but I sure would love to get the movies of our old dog when she was a pup, and the pictures of our grandkids.
Title: Is there a way to play old VHS tapes into a Mac
Post by: Highmac on November 17, 2009, 01:52:56 AM
Jane - another possibility is the VHS to DVD recorder, like this one; I think most major manufacturers offer at least one. Over here Samsung and Panasonic also market them with built-in digital tuners. Might be worth a look since the conversion is done in the machine and you don't have to connect it to the Mac.

Paddy - We used to call this country "Rip-off Britain", with traders simply replacing the dollar symbol with the pound symbol (e.g. 100USD=100GBP), regardless of the exchange rate. With the rise of cross-border internet trading that is less common. I think Apple's prices were converted fairly reasonably when sterling was strong last year. By law, retail price tickets have to include VAT (15% until January when it goes back up to 17.5%).
Your WD HD (this one?) seems to be around 70GBP, including VAT.

The one I got was the external LaCie d2 Quadra, for which I paid 142GBP (before delivery and VAT - £175 total) back in March. The same dealer is now offering it for 120GBP (before delivery and VAT - about 145GBP inclusive).  Amazon.com wants $155 including shipping but presumably there would be taxes to go on that.
If you care to compare.... similar pages on:
Apple Store US
Apple Store UK
Apple Store Ireland; I'm assuming prices will be the same throughout the euro region, and at least this one's in English smile.gif
Exchange rates now: 1GBP = 1.68 USD = 1.13 euros.
Bet you wish now you'd never mentioned it.... Devilish2.gif

Jane: Sorry about  the hijack.  rolleyes.gif
Title: Is there a way to play old VHS tapes into a Mac
Post by: krissel on November 17, 2009, 04:11:39 AM
I have the Sony VHS-DVD recorder in Neil's link which I intended to use to put my folks' tapes on DVD. But honestly I haven't had time to do so. Therefore I can't tell you how good it is or isn't. rolleyes.gif

 I also have a Philips DVDR3575H/37 digital recorder that is used with my analog TV in my studio. It has a hard drive and DVD burner in it. I have hooked up my VCR to it and recorded the tapes, then burned them to DVD. Works just fine but you can't easily do any editing that way. You'd have to either stop recording by hand or then rip the DVD on the Mac, do the editing and then reburn the video. However that particular product is no longer available except as used or refurbished, though similar ones are.
Title: Is there a way to play old VHS tapes into a Mac
Post by: jcarter on November 17, 2009, 06:30:27 AM
Since we dont have very many, I probably would skip the editing, Ive never done that anyway.
The old tapes would be just fine to put the whole thing onto the DVD.
Im thinking back, we do have some wonderful stuff of family and pets from way back. Also have some really great travel tapes on the 8 whatevers that Sony had, they are a cassette about the size of an audio tape but a bit thicker.
We used to have a Sony 'weather proof' videocam which we took in the boats out on the Belize reefs, and one tape of driving thru the mountains and seaside in Costa Rica,,,,,I would LOVE to preserve those tapes onto DVD.
This is fun, I am so glad that you all have these links to what we need to buy, makes it easy.
Thanks,
Jane
Title: Is there a way to play old VHS tapes into a Mac
Post by: jcarter on November 17, 2009, 08:10:11 PM
Just spotted this from a promotion from York Photo,
http://www.denevilabs.com/Content.aspx?Pag...to+DVD+Services
I will look it over tomorrow.
jane
Title: Is there a way to play old VHS tapes into a Mac
Post by: MamaMoose on November 18, 2009, 01:01:21 AM
I have a bunch of VHS tapes taken with a Sony video camcorder. I still have the camera which I will sell if I can run the Sony and output via Firewire. Can I connect the FireWire output of the camcordr to my Mac (FW800 or FW400). If so, do I connect the output cable and then in some way couple it to a FW800 or 400 plug? Then can I use Toast to load  the video(s) into either a disk or a folder?

Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks,

MamaMoose
Title: Is there a way to play old VHS tapes into a Mac
Post by: krissel on November 18, 2009, 01:16:02 AM
If you only have a few videos to transfer it may be easier to use a service like that one.  Just put "video transfer to dvd" in Google and you will get dozens of places to check out.

FWIW, I have a Sony 8mm VCR which I hardly ever used. I bought it to show tapes from an 8mm camcorder I had but ultimately gave the camera away. One of these days I'll have to hook it up and watch those old tapes.

One thing that I've encountered, much to my dismay, is tapes that were stored on an enclosed porch have developed a white fungus or mold on the tape. Unfortunately they will probably have to be discarded.  sad.gif

Here's some reading from MacinTouch:

http://www.macintouch.com/readerreports/di...ideo/index.html

Other hardware choices:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/video/Compu...VR_Input_Output
Title: Is there a way to play old VHS tapes into a Mac
Post by: jcarter on November 18, 2009, 06:51:07 AM
Thank you again, these are all great links.
I will see what the best and most economical way to do this will be, then will go thru them to see how many we really want to convert.
It would be nice to have those all on DVD, just our home movies, we can always buy the commercial ones if we really want them.
Jane
Title: Is there a way to play old VHS tapes into a Mac
Post by: dakota on November 19, 2009, 03:19:43 PM
Just got an email about this today.  I have not had a chance to really look it over, but it seems to cover all possibilities. http://www.shopnbc.com/product/?familyid=V...Mail_2078166345
Title: Is there a way to play old VHS tapes into a Mac
Post by: Xairbusdriver on November 19, 2009, 05:14:02 PM
QUOTE
Create a gift of video memories for family and friends this holiday season!
Does anyone notice that ones slide shows/videos are not nearly as interesting to others as they are to ourselves? I'm just sayin'... rofl.gif
Title: Is there a way to play old VHS tapes into a Mac
Post by: jcarter on November 19, 2009, 05:40:56 PM
Yup, our grandkids could not be bothered, though our kids would love to pore thru this stuff.
Jane
Title: Is there a way to play old VHS tapes into a Mac
Post by: Highmac on November 20, 2009, 01:42:03 AM
QUOTE(Xairbusdriver @ Nov 19 2009, 11:14 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Does anyone notice that ones slide shows/videos are not nearly as interesting to others as they are to ourselves? I'm just sayin'... rofl.gif


Yup - have sat through several hours (it might only have been three) of someone else's visit to Australia. I now know Sydney Opera House, and most of the continent's other attractions, from every possible angle and no longer feel the slightest need to visit "down under". biggrin.gif
Title: Is there a way to play old VHS tapes into a Mac
Post by: Frances144 on November 25, 2009, 05:22:55 AM
I did it by attaching a camcorder to the Video recorder and taping the output direct.  Then I uploaded the camcorder's contents to my iMac (firewire lead) and using iMovie, I turned it into a dvd.  A long laborious process but it worked fine.
Title: Is there a way to play old VHS tapes into a Mac
Post by: jcarter on November 25, 2009, 06:36:25 AM
This link that we looked at earlier,
http://www.roxio.com/enu/products/easy-vhs...c/overview.html
was reviewed in the latest Mac|Life magazine, I think we will go with it.
Thank you all for the help with this, now to find the time to do it.
Jane
Title: Is there a way to play old VHS tapes into a Mac
Post by: jcarter on November 29, 2009, 03:06:24 PM
Update on the old movie to DVD situation,
We have a page in our local paper for recommended businesses and stuff like that, and there was a letter today who recommended a service that did this recording highly.
I called the guy and he explained it all out to me, and he figured at $20 per tape, that he could do all ours, we have 15 to do, for about $300. But then he asked me if the tapes were full, fully recorded, and they arent. So he said that he could get probably 3 or 4 of my tapes onto one disk, bringing the cost down a lot.
He has a studio all set up with Macs, and said I could bring the tapes up anytime, and go thru some of them, to see what is on them timewise. He could give me a closer price then.
 I dont want to do any editing myself, though he said I could sit at his desk and do that if I wanted. Its an hour drive from our house, so I think I shall just send him the tapes, or we can drive them up there, and let him do the work.
Its worth that to me to have them done correctly.  And I would have to buy the Roxio software and a connector box or cables, and our camera is toast, so I would have to borrow one from my brother, and his is just as old and bad as mine.  I think it would cost me more in stuff to buy or borrow, and in time and trouble,,,,,,,so I think if I can get them all done for about $200 I will go for it.
What do you think?
Jane
Title: Is there a way to play old VHS tapes into a Mac
Post by: krissel on November 30, 2009, 12:39:35 AM
If you don't anticipate any more tapes needing transfer in the future, I'd say it's worth the money to save the time and aggravation of doing it yourself.  If you really wanted to edit the tapes you could always rip them off the DVD, work with them and burn new DVDs.
Title: Is there a way to play old VHS tapes into a Mac
Post by: Highmac on November 30, 2009, 02:34:27 AM
If the tapes are valuable (if it's only sentimental value), I'd be tempted to deliver them personally rather than risk mailing them. No matter how reliable your postal service, it's always the most important or irreplaceable things that lose their way....  rolleyes.gif

And it gives you the chance to meet the guy face to face... you could maybe sign him up to TeeEss too! wink.gif
Title: Is there a way to play old VHS tapes into a Mac
Post by: jcarter on November 30, 2009, 07:12:11 AM
Thats what he said also, he would prefer us not to mail them, and wants to show us his studio. He said we can edit a couple of them if we wanted using his fast equipment. But its a long drive, we will have to think about it.
We would have to bring Lilly.
Thanks,
Jane
Title: Is there a way to play old VHS tapes into a Mac
Post by: ClayEM on December 01, 2009, 02:33:26 PM
QUOTE(jcarter @ Nov 16 2009, 02:24 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
We have a lot of old VHS tapes, movies, classes, concerts,,,,,that we would like to be able to play on our new large screen Macs. Not the TV.
Is this possible?
Thanks,
Jane

 
Jane,

I'm a little late with this, but back in 2004 I wanted to do the same thing you're wanting to do and purchased an analog to digital converter (Hollywood Dazzle) and converted a bunch of VHS tapes by connecting them to Dazzle and feeding them to iMovie on my computer. I then was able to edit them to my heart's content.

I no longer have a use for this equipment as I now use a VHS to DVD converter for this king of stuff.

If you haven't resolved your project yet, maybe you'd be interested in taking the Hollywood Dazzle off my hands. It's been in storage now for close to 5 years and for shipping and a pittance you can have it.

Clay
Title: Is there a way to play old VHS tapes into a Mac
Post by: jcarter on December 01, 2009, 03:13:01 PM
Oh, that would be great if the old cameras worked, and I think our VHS recorder is toast too, as the grandkids couldnt get it to work last week.
So I still would have to rent, borrow, or somehow get an older videocam, and find a VHS machine.
But thank you anyway.
Its probably easier to just send them to this guy and have him do the work.  I have never used iMovie, so it would be pretty time consuming for me to try to learn to edit stuff.
Jane