VCR to Mac

Grass Valley (Thompson) sells the Canopus ADVC line of Analog to Digital converters. They connect via firewire and work quite well. I'm particularly fond of the ADVC-300. It has a Time Base Corrector built in which is essential to help salvage VHS tapes.

iMovie will capture the material.

On the other hand, if are not looking to edit the material, look into a DVD-Recorder. Connect the video and audio output of the VHS player to the inputs on the DVD-R, hit record and go do something while the transfer happens in real time. Much, much faster and may look better as you are not going through as many compression steps.

x

Does anyone have any suggestions that do NOT cost over $300 (like the Canopus ADVC)?!!! $300 to $400 dollars is insane...

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cramer, welcome to the forum.

Usually people like to read and think about what's being said for a while before making a first post. You apparently like to let everyone know you're here. It would have been useful if you had something more constructive to contribute. But you are certainly entertaining.

The Original Poster asked a question about dealing with heirloom video. If they were to take these tapes to a post house to have them dubbed, they would spend considerably more than the cost of a Canopus. Since I like to extract as good a quality as I can from whatever I working with and, I like to own my equipment, if find the Canopus a reasonably priced bit of gear. Still, if it was a one time deal, I could sell the box after I've finished the capturing to bring the cost of the adventure.

All that aside, in the scheme of video, $500 isn't much. If you think that's an unimaginable sum to throw at your hobby, you need to find another hobby. Video is not cheap. And it isn't easy - no matter what Apple wants to sell you.

x

Hello.

If you plan to do any editing of the video, then you need a device like the Canopus ADVC-110 that converts analog video to DV. Yes, they run about $200 new, $100-$150 used. There is also a slightly older model ADVC-100 works just as good, and you can find for a little less. You can always consider selling it after you are finished with your project & recover most of your investment, as there is a good market for used Canopus devices.

The cheap USB-based devices do not convert video from your VCR to a format/codec that is usable for editing. Watching, yes. Editing, no.

I have used the ADVC's for years and can attest they do an excellent job.

Also, as StudioX already suggested, if all you want to do is transfer the VHS video directly to DVD (without any editing) then a DVD recorder would be the easiest way to go. I have seen decent DVD recorders for $100-$150 (Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba)

B&H photo video in NYC is always a good place to start if you are looking for a new device.

Amazon may have some used 110s and/or 300s.

As was noted, if this is a one time deal, you can always sell the device afterwards to bring down the real cost.

good luck,

x

Any one will be fine.

The 100 and 110 are the same device (internally). The 300 adds some extra features including the time base corrector that StudioX mentioned. The TBC may be useful if you have bad VHS tapes. The 100/110 have worked perfectly for me except for 1 very bad VHS tape. But I'm not convinced the 300 would make a difference even with that tape.

I have used the 100 & 110 for years and they have been most satisfactory.

A quick search will explain how time base correction works. It is not a panacea, tbc cannot rebuild the image from a broken tape. For that, you need a device known as a frame sync. But all a frame sync does is hold the video input in a digital frame store and clock it back out as completely stable video but it will contain all artifacts including head switching, dropout, chroma aberrations, and anything else that got recorded to or cannot be recovered from the tape . Most tbc units attempt to stabilize the time base and add some dropout compensation. A severely damaged tape has no time base to correct.

bogiesan