Click Essentials: VHS to DVD

Our essential guide to getting your old VHS videos into a digital format.

An adapter is used for converting output into composite

It has been a long time since VHS was the format of choice for preserving treasured memories.

The newer DVD has mostly replaced old tapes. But these can be given a digital makeover to stop images from fading away.

There are a number of different ways to convert VHS to DVD, but all methods will require at least one of these cables, composite, firewire or USB, to connect various outputs to various inputs.

The composite video cable does not provide the best quality video but it is more than adequate for transferring VHS video to DVD.

The firewire cable allows high-speed data transfers between your computer and an AV device, while the USB cable allows high-speed data transfers between two USB devices.

An adapter will also be needed to convert the Scart output from your VRC to composite.

DIRECT TRANSFER

One of the easiest and cheapest ways to transfer a VHS tape on to DVD is to connect a VCR player straight into a DVD writer.

It works pretty much in the same way as a VCR.

This means the video is copied to DVD in real time, but footage cannot be edited down, or fancy menus and chapter breaks added to the DVD.

CAPTURE AND EDIT

For flexibility and creativity, use a DV camcorder to transfer your analogue footage on to a PC. An analogue to DV converter would work as an alternative to a camcorder.

Connect the VCR to the camcorder using the composite cable and then you can hook up the camcorder to the PC using the firewire cable. Not all computers come with a firewire port so check if yours does first.

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Editing software is needed to capture the video in the PC.

There are hundreds of editing applications to choose from, from professional to novice, and some of the latest operating systems come with basic editing software.

Once the video is edited, the masterpiece can be burnt on to a DVD.

The footage is usually quite big in size, approximately 1GB for every five minutes, so further work is needed to make it all fit on a 4.5GB DVD disc.

DVD authoring software solves the problem by compressing the footage so hours of video can fit on one disc, along with the choice to create a nice menu screen.

VIDEO TRANSFER DEVICE

A video transfer device encodes footage without a PC

Another option is a video transfer device that will encode the footage on the fly.

There is no need for a PC to record the footage on, so it works well for people who do not have a VHS player and computer in the same room.

Just connect the VCR player to one end, connect your USB storage unit to the other end and press record.

Then the video can go on a portable player, be stored on a PC or burnt to a DVD. Best of all, fancy menu options can still be added to the DVD, and a bit of basic editing done.