Gadgetory

remember good old VHS tapes they have to run in the 90s but they're certainly not making a comeback so if you're still holding on to a box full in your basement it's time to put the VHS tapes to rest once and for all and put those memories into a digital drawers Costco Walgreens or Walmart offer the service or you can mail it into an online service but you'll have to spend around $15 a tape depending on where you go and they may not always give them back in the most user friendly formats oh yeah and sensitive material may be off limits so if you're more comfortable doing it yourself here's what you need there's no way of playing these anywhere so you're gonna have to get that old VHS player out of storage too or order use one off eBay or Amazon you'll also need one of these converters there's a ton of options out there for Mac or PC users at different price ranges I'll be using this one I bought on Amazon for about $40 next you'll need a Mac or PC with a DVD player to install the software so if it's a newer device you'll also need one of these or check to see if you can download the software online if it's an older computer and you have a big pile of VHS tapes to get through I'd also recommend an external hard drive to store all the footage on start by plugging everything in and make sure to match the colors on the VHS outputs then insert the CD and download all the necessary software in my case the drive in the editing software for later now dust off that old VHS tape and put it in the player and I'm talking about the whole movies not the copy of Braveheart you never return to Blockbuster before you hit play though open the software that came with a converter and make sure you adjust your capture settings to a format that's easy to store an edit MPEG MOV or mp4 work great if you have the option now make sure you're cued up to the part you actually want to save because chances are not all of your tape is worth saving finally you can start recording on the computer and press play on the VHS player now let it roll for as long as you want the clip to be once you're done you should have a file waiting for you in the folder you selected you can end here or put it on a USB or hard drive to collect us somewhere else or upload to a cloud-based storage service depending on the number of videos and the weight of the file I would recommend Google drive's iCloud for Apple users or Dropbox if you don't have a Google or Apple account or if you're really adventurous you could edit a sweet home movie with all your footage and even add some throwback transitions just for fun the analog converter comes with its own editing tool but there are plenty of free programs out there like iMovie for Macs or moviemaker for Windows and if you're ready to go public with your popstar past you can even upload to Vimeo or YouTube