How to digitize a video cassette?

Surely in many family archives there are still boxes with video cassettes, among which there is necessarily an old but very valuable home video: dances, concerts, birthdays, festive meetings, the first steps of the child, the first word and many other moments that must be preserved. Of course, you have not watched this video for a long time. And even if you keep them very carefully, all the same time takes its toll. Insufficient humidity or high temperature leads to the fact that over the years the film is showered, which, of course, causes irreparable damage to your collection.

Therefore, the question of how to digitize a video cassette to stop aging of media and prevent the loss of a home collection becomes more urgent. In addition, digitization will allow you to add titles, music, make a montage or color correction to your movie. All this will give new life to old records.

The process of digitization

Before beginning to understand how to digitize a video cassette, and start the process, it should be borne in mind that old cassettes "suffer" the presence of drop frames or signal dropouts. In the process of digitizing captures sound and video. With the sound of problems does not arise, but with the image there are difficulties. If during the digitization process the program stumbles on the drop frame, it sticks adjacent frames, carving out the emptiness and getting rid of them. As a result, your video can last 60 minutes, and the sound - 65. Most effectively with the problems of empty frames are coped in professional studios. However, you yourself can learn how to digitize a video cassette, and learn how to deal with these difficulties.

What is required for this?

In order to digitize records, you need to have a computer, a video recorder capable of playing cassettes, and a DVD burner that will record the film on disk.

The usual digitization of cassettes is quite simple. You just need to know how to connect the equipment.

First of all, you need to find a video recorder. If it has not been used for a long time, you should clean the tape drive mechanism. It is best to use special tools, but simple cleaning cassettes will not help.

There are three main ways to digitize video cassettes.

1. Capture the movie through the video card of the computer.

To do this, you will need to purchase an RCA cable, also called a "tulip", or an S-Video with an audio cable. At the back of the system unit, find the connectors of the video card. They can be designed for any of these types of cables. In order not to be mistaken, it is best to carefully study the instruction manual for your video card.

This method allows to solve the problem with tm, how to digitize VHS, but it will be quite complicated for those who do not have experience.

2. Capture video through a video capture card (for this you will have to purchase it). It allows you to connect the VCR to your computer. The only complication is that you have to disassemble the PC and insert the card into an empty slot on the motherboard. For this you can contact the service center. The cost of the video capture card is about three thousand rubles.

3. Digitization of cassettes via USB-device, the purchase of which will allow to solve without difficulty the problem with how to digitize a video cassette. The cost of such a device starts from a thousand rubles. As a rule, the kit includes a disk with special software and detailed instructions.

And if you decide to digitize, keep in mind that the raw film will occupy about 10-15 GB of space. For further installation, you will need not only a special program, but also a powerful computer with a good memory and a fast processor.

We hope that this article answered your main questions about how to digitize a video cassette. You just need to choose the best way and start. Over time, this process will seem very simple to you.