Borrowed a friend's old VCR. I have dozens of old VHS tapes. Need to convert some.
The VCR is an RCA VR503A with an Audio 1 (white) in/out and a Video 1 (yellow) in/out.
My handy cam is a Sony DCR-SX43 with an A/V connecting cable (three inputs, red/white/yellow). I tinkered with the two today, doesn't seem to match up. The three and two. Something's probably not going to work.
Should I just bite the bullet and buy the Roxio Easy VHS to DVD? Or do I have a shot at getting my camcorder and VCR to match up?
Thanks.
/M.
Plugging the white into white (mono) didn't give you audio? Or the Handycam wasn't seeing the output of the VCR? You may need female to female RCA connectors to connect the two cables if you don't already have them.
Location: Tottenham, Ontario - far above the centre of the universe
Posts: 288
@ mgmitchel
If you can’t get your handy-cam to work, you could try an EyeTV. I think I saw one for sale on the classified thread some time back.
I connect our old VCR output to my EyeTV 250 plus, connect the EyeTV to iMac (via supplied USB cable), run EyeTV software and record video - no problem, no fuss. File sizes range from 3 to 4 GB. As far as I’m concerned the only minor drawback is that it’s a real-time process, so you have to set it up and leave it, or maybe just sit & watch the old movie.
I then use Toast Titanium 11.0.4 to encode the .eye file and burn to DVD and also convert and send to iTunes. Finally I compress the original file and stick it in my archive.
Also works great to record Over-The-Air television - & edit out the commercials.
BTW - I do own all the old VCR tapes I record, just converting them to DVD’s before the VCR dies or the tapes break.
Borrowed a friend's old VCR. I have dozens of old VHS tapes. Need to convert some.
The VCR is an RCA VR503A with an Audio 1 (white) in/out and a Video 1 (yellow) in/out.
My handy cam is a Sony DCR-SX43 with an A/V connecting cable (three inputs, red/white/yellow). I tinkered with the two today, doesn't seem to match up.
Have you checked the manual of your handy cam?
It doesn't look as if it has an input to record from a VCR at all.
If that is the case you can't use it to convert your VHS tapes.
You need a video camera that can record from a VCR and outputs in some digital format.
The DCS-SX-43 A/V connections ate OUTPUTS to connect to a TV.
If it's only a few it may be cheaper and a lot less effort on your part to just farm this work out.
Or see if you can borrow a handy cam that has composite or S-VHS or some sort of compatible input that your VCR can feed.
Once the tapes are digitized, you can always convert them to the format you prefer.
Buying Roxio or Eye TV will set you back $70 to $100 and you end up with a one-trick pony (unless you spend even more money)
How many VHS tapes are you planning to convert?
If it's only a few it may be cheaper and a lot less effort on your part to just farm this work out.
Or see if you can borrow a handy cam that has composite or S-VHS or some sort of compatible input that your VCR can feed.
Once the tapes are digitized, you can always convert them to the format you prefer.
Buying Roxio or Eye TV will set you back $70 to $100 and you end up with a one-trick pony (unless you spend even more money)
Ha. True. Just returned from Best Buy. Both you mentioned will each run me $90+. Maybe I'll farm out some here in Belleville, should be someone who does it. I have two big boxes of them - but I'm not going to bother converting all of them. Just the home movies and such.
/M.
A friend had a similar Sony handy cam he used as a "converter" to get the VCR VHS tape digitized onto his Mac a few years ago.
I'm not sure of the cabling details etc. he used, but I do recall that a Firewire cable had to be used from his Sony to his Mac. Sony calls the FW cable an I-Link cable.
PS: Even though I've got a very old Mac that could do the VCR-VHS conversion directly, we took advantage of a sale our local Costco store had last last year to do the VHS, and some old super-8 film movies conversions that didn't cost an arm and a leg to have done
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The problem with the DCR-SX43 is not getting the video from the camcorder to the Mac but getting the video signal from the VCR into the camcorder to digitize it.
I looked at the manual and that particular camcorder doesn't have any video input ports the way I see it.
Linear Mode
