Here 's how to rescue old VHS and camcorder tapes and bring them back to life!
Don't delay, as your precious memories caught on tape might soon disappear: these kind of tapes deteriorate quickly, even if they wore stored out of direct sunlight!
Do take a good look at your old tapes before starting.If they’ve been gathering dust – literally, that is – try to clean as much as you can from the part of the cassette where the tape is exposed to prevent it being drawn inside once you play it. Also, make sure the spindles haven’t seized up. If they have, try to get them moving by hand before trying to play the offending tape.
1. You need a VHS player of the camcorder with which you filmed the video
If you decide that you do want to preserve your VHS tapes for posterity, you’ll need something to play them on and if you’ve already got rid of your VHS video recorder or camcorder you’re going to have to borrow or buy one.
2. Get the right video transfer cable
you will need some additional video capture hardware and its associated software. We will not provide links for any of these device, you're free to browse for them on the internet and make up your mind as to which one best suits your needs.
basically here is what the right piece of transfer cable looks like:
In the demo videos below, you'll find one (EZ cap) that costs around 20$ and one with Elgato software that costs more, but is both PC and MAC compatible.
The process of digitising your VHS tapes should be straightforward enough. Start the recording software and play your VHS tape from the point where you want the recording to start. Stop the recording software at the end of the video.
Then use our VSO Video Converterto convert the video onto DVD, transfer straight to an Ipad or any tablet, or convert in Avi or any other format.
Here are two demo videos using different cables, but the transfer method remains the same:
http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-574 ... -computer/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrbP8fsHxEc