Those old VHS tapes you have laying around with your favorite home movies are eventually going to become warped, damaged or lost. Losing your VHS tapes doesn't have to mean losing the footage contained on them, however. You can keep your recorded VHS videos by converting them from a VHS tape to a DVD. As long as you have the proper equipment hooked up to a computer, you can store the VHS data on your hard drive, and then burn it directly to a DVD.
Instructions
1. Check the ports on the back of your computer to see if it has a video capture card with an RCA connector. Plug the external video capture card's USB cable into a USB port on your computer. Insert the installation disc that came with the card into the computer's DVD drive. Follow the prompts on the screen to install the video capture software.
2. Remove the VHS camcorder's or VCR's three colored RCA cables from the back of your television. Connect the RCA cables to the corresponding ports on the video capture card.
3. Bring up the video capture software program. Click "Play" or the corresponding button for the specific capture card software you are using. Click and drag the video slide bar to find a specific segment of VHS video you want to convert.
4. Select the option labeled "Record," "Capture" or something similar. Click "Stop" when you reach the end of the VHS segment you want to convert. Click "Save" and choose a folder on your hard drive where the VHS video should be saved.
5. Insert a blank DVD into your computer's DVD-RW drive. Click "Burn a DVD Data Disc." Select "Mastered Disc" if you want to create a DVD that is viewable with a standard DVD player. Select "Live File System Disc" if you want to create a data disc that can be edited at a later date.
6. Click the VHS file you transferred to your computer and drag it into the DVD window. Click "Burn" and then click "OK."
Tags: video capture, capture card, your computer, video capture card, back your, capture software