[mythtv-users] OT: Converting VHS to digital with Ion vcr2pc

Jonny B jon.the.wise.gdrive at gmail.com
Mon Dec 1 02:30:14 UTC 2008


On Sun, Nov 30, 2008 at 6:57 AM, Brian Wood <beww at beww.org> wrote:
> On Saturday 29 November 2008 22:56:27 Jonny B wrote:
>> My mother has hundreds of old home movies and whatnot that she wants
>> to convert to digital so she can get rid of the tapes. She saw this
>> here thing, and I was wondering if anybody had any experience with it.
>>
>> http://www.ionaudio.com/vcr2pc
>>
>> It *appears* to do the encoding in hardware, but I am not sure. I was
>> hoping someone that has used one could say. Otherwise, would it not be
>> easier to get a USB capture device with hardware encoding (which can
>> be had much cheaper) and plug her VCR into it? I am half tempted to
>> tell her to get a Happauge HD-PVR and when she's done converting all
>> her VHS tapes, then she could give it to me, and I could use it for HD
>> capture. This seems like a more logical purchase to me than a VCR with
>> a USB port and a extra set of video inputs on it. Anybody?
>
> Save $100:
>
> I bought a Phillips VCR/DVD-R combo for under $100 which I used to convert
> hundreds of VHS tapes to DVD.
>
> It would refuse to copy a VHS tape "protected" by MacroVision, but this should
> not be a problem with home movies. As for "whatnots", there are alternatives.

My google-fu says that the Ion device outputs uncompressed video. It's
a non-starter for my parents. We went to newegg and got one of the
pinnacle devices that I posted in my reply

<http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3776462&CatId=1428>

<http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815144025>


It's $79 on newegg, with a $30 mailin rebate... so it'll be here on
tuesday or wednesday, and I'll report back. It seems like the most
user friendly solution that I've seen, just plug your
VHS/Camcorder/etc into the RCAs (also has svideo) one one side and a
USB storage device (memory stick, hard drive, etc) into the other
side, select a quality level, and press play on everything, and you
get an h.264 encoded file in one of multiple (320x240, 640x480,
720x480) resolutions. Seems very simple, but not very configurable
(which, for me, not so great, but for my parents, HUGE plus.
Personally, I'd just use my PVR150... but I don't have the time to
convert all their tapes for them) They also have a PAL version
available... as for the "whatnots" they're mostly old sporting events
and made for tv movies and stuff, so macrovision won't be an issue.
The tapes that have macrovision are going to be things like the disney
collection, and those will be likely kept for the inherit collectors
value that original working Disney VHS will have.

~Jon


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