How to Digitize VHS & VHS-C Tapes to Digital, Top Tips on DIY or Choosing a Video Transfer Company
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ก.พ. 2025
- In this video, Phil from Got Memories talks about the VHS on VHS - C videotape formats from the 1980s to 1990s. The video covers things to look out for choosing a VCR cleaning the heads monitoring the audio and video signal so a clear picture is present, along with clear audio in stereo. Additionally, cleaning the heads with show me tips and electromagnetic contact cleaner.
Also, covered are the two things to look for when choosing a video transfer company. Essential tips to ensure trusting the only copy of your precious home memories to a video transfer company goes smoothly.
The first essential for any video transfer company, you are scouting to digitize your home movies to USB DVD or cloud is making sure they have an active TH-cam channel with lots of current content. Also shots of the premises and equipment, processes to gain your trust. Transparency is everything in this industry. The second essential is a five star review rating on Google. Google is the benchmark for reviews the things you need to look out for within. Google reviews is the star rating 5.0 is the benchmark but if it is a 5.0, they must be well over 100 reviews to ensure authenticity of the reviews themselves small numbers of reviews with glowing comments usually on family members and friends of the business owner when you see well over 100 reviews with a 5.0 and additionally which this is key is every single review has a response from the owner, good or bad review, always a response.
Are you looking to transfer your old VHS tapes to a digital format? Look no further! Our professional transfer service uses state-of-the-art equipment to ensure that your videos are transferred to digital with the highest quality possible. Unlike other transfer services, we understand the importance of maintaining the integrity of your videos during the transfer process, which is why we use only the best equipment and employ professional technicians who are experts in fixing equipment that does get dirty with the grading of VHS tapes and camcorder tapes. Our team is dedicated to providing you with a high-quality transfer that will help preserve your precious memories for years to come. Don't trust your tapes to just anyone, trust our experienced team to get the job done right. Check out our reviews to see what our satisfied customers have to say about our high-quality work. Contact us today to schedule your transfer and experience the difference for yourself!
You're doing incredible work by preserving the priceless memories of people from all around the world!
Thank you!
This guy is awesome and the work he does is fantastic. We had several home movies from the 60's and 70's and it turned out great. thanks Phil again. Jeff from Ottawa.
Hey Jeff! Great comment! Thank you and glad you enjoyed your super 8 transfers! Make sure you leave a google review if you haven’t done already! Appreciate! Cheers!
Phil
First of all, great video, thank you very much! I have an option in the video capturer I bought to capture through a YPbPr cable and relatively I liked the result. So assuming I have all the options, is it better to capture via s-video, composite, YPbPr, or another cable at all? Thank you 🙏🏼
After doing this myself... I can tell you this guy speaks the TRUTH!
🙌
What a impressive place you have, thanks for posting.
Thanks!
You're doing amazing work here. I almost hit purchase today on a legacybox order and I had a gut feeling to lookup reviews. I am smart enough to figure out how to convert these tapes myself, and I have the equipment. Thank you for this.
Phew dodged a bullet there! Good luck.
Awesome job mate! I have a college background in Film and Television and Post Production. When I was young, I started my own company filming weddings, LOL! Clients wanted everything for nothing, they thought the tape came out of the camera magically edited with name keys, titles, music and fades. Like you I consistently had to explain I needed to work at least 40 to 50 hrs to get to the finished product, charging about $1500 to $2500 per wedding. That business was short lived, I still hobby in filming and editing and like you I'm a perfectionist. I do a little over kill when capturing for myself, I like upscaling to 1920X1440 to Apple ProRes and de-interlacing my footage, also capturing using s-video.
Again this process is tedious, I really like your setup, awesome dub suite. I really like seeing a small company explode, I hope you do really well.
Cheers!
Phil Graham
Graham mate! Thanks for reaching out! Wedding videography! Ugh! No thanks lol!
You get what you pay for no matter what the industry!
I’ve been in biz 21 years now and had 5 full time employees back in 2012 and since then slowly scaled back and now it’s just me and Samantha and became quality over quantity. Way less stress and more enjoyable!
All the best to you mate on your endevours!
Cheers,
Phil
Do you use DVD Recorders to transfer tapes to DVD, is using a PC with a video capture card better.
@@speedyboishan87 I'm no expert and I could be wrong but I would assume that once the tapes are captured on the laptop, they then transfer the digital file to DVD, rather than recording straight to DVD. As I say, I'm no expert, but that makes more sense to me.
So many sites point to S-VHS with TBC being shoved down your throat. Seeing the quality you provide with more consumer-grade over pro-sumer equipment is encouraging! Trying to source one of those 7k and 9k series JVC's with all the bells and whistles is enough to drive someone crazy.
Yes, lots of overkill out there with know it all’s sitting in their parents basement who are spending 3 years digitizing their family collection vs having any sense of running a business with competition and a customer base that have trouble understanding even what a USB drive is.
Sourcing old prosumer decks (that work even) is needle in a haystack. Like searching for rare & mint baseball cards, if you find one in good condition, be prepared to spend thousands no little to no warranty.
@@gotmemories Thanks for the reply. Just watched your legacy box scam vid and, you sir, are doing the Lords work lol. New sub here!
@ thank you!!
What an interesting and in-depth video; thanks. I'll be submitting my videos to a local company in my country.
Hopefully they check all the boxes
This guy is awesome .Fantastic I used elgato capture it work out good. Thanks.
Glad I could help
These videos are so appreciated!
Glad you like them!
Wow I'm impressed! So cool to see a legit setup. I read that a TBC is important when digitizing...I'm not going to claim to understand what it even does lol but do you ever run into issues without using one? or does the Elgato capture card have a TBC built in?
Not required if you have the right setup.
I do use them with more spec heavy projects, but home movies are fine.
Gotta love a good service where they take pride in the end product.
👍👍
Hey, thanks for the great video. Do you know of any capture software that works with the Canopus ADVC-110? Adobe recently removed their capture ability so now I'm left with buying a new device, like Elgato, or finding a new software. Thanks!
Hi! Glad you enjoyed the video. I don’t I’m afraid.
Have you tried the OBS software? That works pretty well and its free.
👍
@@GarySteegs It doesn't seem to work with the Canopus. I've found other people online who say the same thing.
@@ProwalkToursWhat programs have you tried?
Do you also use high quality workflows, like "JVC S-VHS > Cypress TBC > Pinnacle capture card" (meaning without any upscaler or deinterlacing processing) ? Great video btw
Rarely, people don’t want to pay for the time involved.
I am sending you my archives. thank you.
Please contact info@gotmemories.com
You are impressive! I hope you got a good go pro or camera in a head band
👍
After digitizing the vhs with the Elgato video capture device on Windows.... is there any way to take the digitized version and make it better? Any advice on what should be used?
Do some color correction, sharpening, exposure adjustments in editing software.
Take a look at DaVinci Resolve. It's involved, but even the free version is incredibly capable.
Would lint free KimTech KimWipes be a good alternative to those expensive cleaning sticks?
Can’t comment. I use solely the sticks. They are not cheap I know.
Very informative video. Thank you.
Glad it was helpful!
How does VHS look on a large TV, also is VHS supposed to look fuzzy, blocky, Thanks. @@gotmemories
Hi, can you please tell me where you found a manual vhs c adaptor that dosnt use batteries. Please i realy need to know.
Got the last batch ever made off JVC in 2013, all 125 of them left in stock.
Thanks for making this video! I’ve been going through my childhood vhs-c tapes and trying to convert them to digital and this really helps!
Just got to the part where you said your shop is in Phoenix, can’t believe you’re so close! 😂
Glad I could help!
Very cool. I have probably 50-100 tapes. Where would they be shipped. If I were to do it with my VCRs I have...tell me something you didn't cover. How often would you clean the head as you did...every 5 tapes, every 10 tapes? What would you recommend. You just transfer the tape as it is...from VHS or what have you to a large file in digital and you can slide through them in the new format? I'm wondering if legacy does that too...or is there a company who makes chapters and breaks the tape down into smaller bits. Surely that would be nearly impossible. Tks
Any orders, gotmemories.com
Cleaning depends. Entire contents of a tape to a single mp4 file. About 800mb per hr.
Thank you for the reply. I'm going to have to get in my trunk and take an inventory. One more thing, from what I'm gathering on the internet they say a wet cleaning system for a VCR head makes no sense and can damage the head irreversible. I watched you do it and it seems like it's a no-brainer but is cleaning the way you did better than the electronic cleaning head tapes that they sell? Can someone simply take a cotton swab with alcohol or something like that? What would you recommend?
Cleaning by hand works the best. Tape cleaners do a basic job. Sometimes works for a short while.
Do you suggest if I'm going to convert my VHS tapes to digital that I start with a brand new VCR? I have an old VCR probably the original one that created the VHS tapes. DO you have a suggestion on what converter system I should buy to do the convertering? I have about 30 VHS tapes and 40 of the video8's.
Always say you need three of each format. They’ll more than likely all crap out or give you issues and you need back up players to cross reference if it’s the tape or the player. You’ll also need to learn how to clean heads and adjust the alignments.
i have a lot of VHS tapes that I recorded things off the TV from many years ago, are the tapes themselves worth anything, do people buy used VHS tapes
No, dumpster I’m afraid
Waouwww nice !!!
Good video but it's a bit dizzying :D
Yeah I know!
Great info
Glad it was helpful!
What is really the best medium at this time?
MP4, USB/Download/Streaming
Do you prefer Panasonic players??
Yes
Allabouthim back in the old days of the big satellite dishes the man that I would hire to set things up and maintenance said that Panasonic was the best route to go!
Elgato is a good capture device, but it's not great. The mpeg compression is about twice as much as I would like to see. However, for the average consumer, with nothing else to compare to, the results will be acceptable.
Lots of options out there with pluses and minuses to all.
Quality is completely acceptable, adding to that which is never talked about is stability and reliability of software/hardware. Rarely crashes and files 9999 times out of 10000 don’t have glitches or issues during or once rendered. Time is money and people don’t have the time nor money typically to pay for upscaling, rendering & gigantic file sizes. They just want to see Timmy’s 4th birthday party from 1986 with clear picture and audio, which comes from well maintained players and skilled operators.