My client has a couple of old VHS tapes that I may need to pull a couple of minutes from. I'll need the tapes transferred to a hard drive, and I don't own the necessary equipment.

Any service to recommend? I found this one on the web, but I'm open to referrals.

HD Media Services - Video Transfer Experts - Offering hi8 to DVD, VHS to DVD, MiniDV to DVD Transfers and more! (http://www.hdmediaservices.com)

Costco to DVD to MPEG Streamclip.

I haven't seen the tapes yet, but I'd rather not add the compression of DVD to the process.

Transfer the VHS tapes direct to a miniDV cam. This will digitize the footage and you will have AVI footage to pull into an NLE and work with. You can record the footage on a tape in the cam and capture from there or have it hooked up to your computer via firewire and load directly into your hard drive, both ways avoiding compression from MPEG2. You will need a VHS player and a miniDV cam with pass through. Both can be found dirt cheap now if you don't already have them.

I've been watching Craigslist for a VCR, as they're apparently not even made anymore.

I've been watching Craigslist for a VCR, as they're apparently not even made anymore.

Walmart has several DVD VCR combos and ebay has hundreds of VCRs listed.

[QUOTE=Philip Fass;1751148]My client has a couple of old VHS tapes that I may need to pull a couple of minutes from. I'll need the tapes transferred to a hard drive, and I don't own the necessary equipment.

VCR to DV should be easy to find someone that can do that for you. If you need it in a larger format once you get the files digital get the cineform trial aand output to the desired resolution. not that it will improve the quality but if you are producing an hd video it will output to 720 or 1080 and free for 15 days.

I would be happy to do it. where is your location

Forget the Dvd transfer as that would be an extra process with no added benefit.

I am sure if you need a vcr ebay would have then for very cheap considering there is no users, except one.

Any service to recommend? I found this one on the web, but I'm open to referrals.

]

I've been watching Craigslist for a VCR, as they're apparently not even made anymore.

Consumer VCRs are easy to find at pawn shops, thrift shops, Goodwill, Salvation Army Stores and garage sales for next to nothing. Professional decks with TBCs built in are much more difficult to find. You could try EBay.

Some VHS tapes are in better condition than others. If you stick a marginal tape in a cheapo deck, disaster may ensue with you pulling your customer's tape out of the machine with pliers. I have been happy with a JVC HR-S9500 running via S-VHS cable through a small Sony D8 deck that will output 1394 Firewire straight to a capture program such as the Vegas Pro capture.

This higher end consumer decks has a single line TBC (time base corrector) too. And the tape handling is gentler than a basic player might be. The JVC has an "auto" tracking feature that seems to align it decently also.

Right now I can do Digital8, Hi-8, Video8, VHS, S-VHS, mini-DV and HDV transfers. Drop a line if you want a quote.

I own a Mitsubishi U61 semi-pro S-VHS deck - if you would like, I can transfer those tapes to tape, hard drive, or flash card in DV25 format.

Also you could use DV camcorder with AV in firewire out. I imagine they would be cheap to buy on ebay, craiglist, ect.

Client was able to loan me a combo VHS/DVD player/recorder for the month. At least now I can see what's on the old tapes.

Client was able to loan me a combo VHS/DVD player/recorder for the month. At least now I can see what's on the old tapes.

Getting a good digital transfer of a VHS tape is tricky. There are two forums

Doom9's Forum - Powered by vBulletin (http://forum.doom9.org/)
VideoHelp.com Forum (http://forum.videohelp.com/)

devoted to this. The first is more technical, however both forums report that the image quality varies between high-end decks and not all TBCs are the same. Built-in noise reduction on one machine can significantly blur a picture which appears sharper on a different deck. Further post processing using avisynth to stabilize, color correct, filter and enhance the resolution of an image is also discussed.

Obviously the easiest thing is use the VHS to DVD recorder the client gave you to burn a DVD and press forward. Are you going to do any color correcting or post work with the footage? Will you be upscaling the footage and cutting it with HD footage? Even if yes, I would start by burning a DVD for backup and to use as a minimum quality standard. Then I'd explore higher quality transfer methods.

Fortunately, I stated clearly (probably overstated) how much worse the quality would be than the HD video I'm shooting. They're fine with that. I'm going to recommend that it be a separate feature on the final DVD, instead of intercut with my material.

There is quite a lot you can do to make that footage look better than the original. You can clean it up with mostly free tools, and if you grade it to look like old footage, apply a 'scratched film' filter, it will blend in - everyone knows what old footage looks like.

I only do vhs transfers where the client want's a lot of work to make them look as good as possible. As mentioned there is a lot that can be done but to get it to look good in today's HD world it takes a lot of time because you're not able to apply "auto" correction tools. Because of the low cost options I can't compete with the "Costco" type of transfers but if someone wants a high quality transfer my workflow is to use a Panasonic AG-7750 deck ingesting with a Blackmagic Design Declkink HD Extreme. That gives me the best starting point. Then it's a long process of clean up.

I have done other projects where the edit incorporates old footage wither form VHS or even 16mm film. For those, I like to actually go the other way and make it very clear that it is old footage being cut in. It gives a nostalgic feel and because it's apparent that it's from old footage, nobody expects it to look that good.