Oh the memories! Growing up we had a VHS camcorder for most of my childhood from late 1980s through my high school days. Unfortunately many tapes have been lost to the time and several moves. Thought I would take a stab at archiving and digitizing my parents collections of tape. The process has been hugely reward; to be able to save those memories; share the with my extended family and hilarious to see yourself in all your awkwardness.
Getting started I procured several pieces of equipment and immersed myself in some handy open source tools to help with the process:
JVC Super-VHS Model HR-S2901U – Borrowed from my folks and put to work
ClearClick Video2USB Video Capture and Live Streaming Device – Handy device to bring the S-Video and AV Audio in
OBS Studio – Video and Audio Capture Software (also used for live streaming / broadcasting)
Handbrake – Video Transcoder
Process was pretty simple after a few test runs. Since I had the space and to make the process as “lossless” as possible; I brought all the video in at 1080i to establish my raw capture of each video. Once I had the raw captures I used Handbrake to Deinterlace and make the format more user friendly from a size perspective to share.
Few things I learned along the way:
- Within OBS; make sure to turn off all other input/output for sound…..ran several tapes through that captured my YouTube view or Zoom calls
- If you get a wonky tape that is playing and the video seems to be flipping horizontally, over and over and no tightening of the tape can fix it – setting your VHS playing on its short side; vertically did help for me!
- Learned how to repair a tape that broke off from one of the reels – tiny screwdriver; scotch tape and this gentle man’s voice to guide you along – How to Repair VHS Tape – Tape Broke Off The Spool – The Media Nerd
To reward all my readers…here is a cute screen grab of Brandon back in the day; I think Circa late 80’s. Next project – where to store all these photos and videos locally and catalog and share.
