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What's the easiest most cost effective way to transfer VHS tapes to a digital format for archiving purposes?

Couple ways.

If the quality's really not great we'll usually just transfer to a real time DVD recorder and then rip the DVD. That way you have a DVD backup too. If it's something that requires the best fidelity we'll run it into one of our video capture cards over firewire and capture it directly into Avid, or FCP or whatever. This way you avoid any extra DVD compression, but usually for VHS the inherent quality(read: lack of) masks any DVD artifacts. I suppose a PVR might be able to accomplish this task as well.

Oh, I guess easiest is just bring it to us and let Troy take care of it. Most cost effective is to find somebody with one of the above mentioned devices to borrow and DIY.

It's for a co-worker who's husband is a dentist and he wants to archive some old tapes of seminars and such.

What are the rates for this type of work? I don't know what the total running time of the tape(s) are yet, but can you give me a rough guess based on 2 hours of VHS for example?

We usually do a bit of a custom quote for each job because the pricing is a little confusing.

To transfer 1 tape to DVD is $25, regardless of length.
However, there is a maximum of 4 hours run time per DVD, so if there are more tapes that can fit onto one DVD they are only $5 extra per tape.

If there's more than that basically just multiply that by how many DVD's are needed.

If duplicate copies of the DVD's are required, they're $5.99 each. We also keep a copy on hand as a backup free of charge.

We have a drop off kiosk at Print 3 at 39 King St Unit C40. It does take a little bit longer but worth it if they're not in Fredericton very often.

macrae11 wrote:We usually do a bit of a custom quote for each job because the pricing is a little confusing.

To transfer 1 tape to DVD is $25, regardless of length.
However, there is a maximum of 4 hours run time per DVD, so if there are more tapes that can fit onto one DVD they are only $5 extra per tape.

If there's more than that basically just multiply that by how many DVD's are needed.

If duplicate copies of the DVD's are required, they're $5.99 each. We also keep a copy on hand as a backup free of charge.

We have a drop off kiosk at Print 3 at 39 King St Unit C40. It does take a little bit longer but worth it if they're not in Fredericton very often.

CHEAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A.

Alain Benoit wrote:

macrae11 wrote:We usually do a bit of a custom quote for each job because the pricing is a little confusing.

To transfer 1 tape to DVD is $25, regardless of length.
However, there is a maximum of 4 hours run time per DVD, so if there are more tapes that can fit onto one DVD they are only $5 extra per tape.

If there's more than that basically just multiply that by how many DVD's are needed.

If duplicate copies of the DVD's are required, they're $5.99 each. We also keep a copy on hand as a backup free of charge.

We have a drop off kiosk at Print 3 at 39 King St Unit C40. It does take a little bit longer but worth it if they're not in Fredericton very often.

CHEAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A.

Agreed... Very.

I have a little device that Paul bought at Future Shop. You can plug in a VCR, Video Camera or anything with the RCA hookups. It converts the file to digital and will allow you to burn straight to DVD or save as a file.