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vhs decode is not for the faint of heart. To use it you have to open up the vcr and soldier some tap points onto it and the software is all command line. I was

vhs decode is not for the faint of heart. To use it you have to open up the vcr and soldier some tap points onto it and the software is all command line. I wasn't able to get it to work. I mean to try it again but I haven't gotten back to it yet.

etrautmann 2y ago
Wouldn’t it be far easier to record downstream of the output? There must be cheap analog video recorders.
- suddenclarity 2y ago
  There are and you can get cheap noname Chinese ones for as low as $10. Unfortunately most of them are terrible. I've played with it on and off for years and even gotten individual tools for $100+ but still have issues. It's a bit of a mess with PAL/NTSC, different recommended settings, and at the end of the day you still need a high quality VCR to extract all the data. Those tend to go for hundreds of dollars here. You also need a time base corrector (some VHS have them built in I believe) to avoid dropping frames and causing desync. A common suggestion is to just get a VHS->DVD recorder and then rip the DVD. You lose out on quality but it usually works and will save you a ton of time. The suggestion by OP is probably if you truly want to maximize the quality.
- pjc50 2y ago
  Oh, there's loads of those. For some reason I've seen the best results with a composite->HDMI upscaler followed by HDMI capture. Composite-only capture devices seem to be flaky. The whole point of VHS-Decode is to bypass as much of the VCR's output circuitry as possible; capture from the read heads and apply modern digital reconstruction from there.
  - actionfromafar 2y ago
    Have the same experience. Also the composite to SD card recorders are supposedly quite good. But nothing beats tapping a VCR into vhsdecode and the soldering looks quite simple. Even cheap VCRs work fine for this. I will find time for it at some point...
    - throwaway48476 2y ago
      VCRs are just ancient enough that soldering is easy.
- airtag 2y ago
  even the non-cheap recorders produce a huge quality loss. It would be slightly easier, but if you're considering archiving something, why not do it as good as possible
- jccalhoun 2y ago
  Yes. VHS-decode is an attempt to get the signal direct from the tape for high quality transfer. It is basically just using the heads on the vcr to pick up the raw signal and the software then decodes it. There are some high end vcrs that can do a better job (according to those who have them.) but they are getting old and even broken ones can go for a couple hundred on ebay. For home movies it isn't worth it since the starting quality probably isn't that great. I've messed around with it for a couple movies that were only released on VHS.
bombcar 2y ago
That kind of requirement is the exact thing that someone can make some money on by doing the conversion and then selling them on eBay. I would gladly spend a couple hundred dollars for something like that if I needed to do VHS conversion.

etrautmann 2y ago

Wouldn’t it be far easier to record downstream of the output? There must be cheap analog video recorders.

suddenclarity 2y ago
There are and you can get cheap noname Chinese ones for as low as $10. Unfortunately most of them are terrible. I've played with it on and off for years and even gotten individual tools for $100+ but still have issues. It's a bit of a mess with PAL/NTSC, different recommended settings, and at the end of the day you still need a high quality VCR to extract all the data. Those tend to go for hundreds of dollars here. You also need a time base corrector (some VHS have them built in I believe) to avoid dropping frames and causing desync. A common suggestion is to just get a VHS->DVD recorder and then rip the DVD. You lose out on quality but it usually works and will save you a ton of time. The suggestion by OP is probably if you truly want to maximize the quality.
pjc50 2y ago
Oh, there's loads of those. For some reason I've seen the best results with a composite->HDMI upscaler followed by HDMI capture. Composite-only capture devices seem to be flaky. The whole point of VHS-Decode is to bypass as much of the VCR's output circuitry as possible; capture from the read heads and apply modern digital reconstruction from there.
- actionfromafar 2y ago
  Have the same experience. Also the composite to SD card recorders are supposedly quite good. But nothing beats tapping a VCR into vhsdecode and the soldering looks quite simple. Even cheap VCRs work fine for this. I will find time for it at some point...
  - throwaway48476 2y ago
    VCRs are just ancient enough that soldering is easy.
airtag 2y ago
even the non-cheap recorders produce a huge quality loss. It would be slightly easier, but if you're considering archiving something, why not do it as good as possible
jccalhoun 2y ago
Yes. VHS-decode is an attempt to get the signal direct from the tape for high quality transfer. It is basically just using the heads on the vcr to pick up the raw signal and the software then decodes it. There are some high end vcrs that can do a better job (according to those who have them.) but they are getting old and even broken ones can go for a couple hundred on ebay. For home movies it isn't worth it since the starting quality probably isn't that great. I've messed around with it for a couple movies that were only released on VHS.

bombcar 2y ago

That kind of requirement is the exact thing that someone can make some money on by doing the conversion and then selling them on eBay. I would gladly spend a couple hundred dollars for something like that if I needed to do VHS conversion.