Looking to upload vhs tapes to my computer. I would probably be interested in spending 150-300. What products would you recommend for this? Thank you
B
Looking to upload vhs tapes to my computer. I would probably be interested in spending 150-300. What products would you recommend for this? Thank you
B
 I'd get a VCR, which you may already have, and an analogue-to-digital converter.
 You should be able to connect the RCA (Red, Yellow, and white) wires from the back of your VCR to the converter. Then the converter should have a Firewire connection so you can go from the convert to your computer through Firewire.Â
 If you can, use S-Video instead of the Yellow RCA wire. Â
 My first step would be to see if your MiniDV camcorder has a pass-thru feature on it. Meaning, you can connect RCA jacks to it (Red, White, Yellow) from the VCR. Then connect the firewire cable to the computer.  This would automatically convert the signal to DV onto the computer.
If you don't have this feature, just go to the local circuit city or best buy and ask about what they have to do it with.Â
Actually for that price range (assuming you have NLE software outside of this) I would go for a VCR/DVD combo recorder (you can get one for less than $200) which has dubbing features - Then just copy the VHS tape to a DVD (+ or - makes no difference usually but don't forget to finalize the disc) and then import the footage into your NLE just as you would from a DVD camcorder disc.
I bought the Pinnacle Dazzle converter for $35 at Best Buy and it did ok, but the audio is a bit out of sync and the video stutters every once in a while. Not worth the $$ IMO.
if you have both VCR and DVD recorder, you can plug VCR into the inputs on the DVD recorder - play VCR and record DVD -- just make sure, if your DVD recorder has front and rear inputs, you need to tell the recorder where to record from. its usually a channel like 00 or 01 depending on the make.
then once you have it on DVD, you can rip the DVD onto your computer. there are various rippers for PC and mac - lots are free - try tucows or download.com or google "DVD ripper"