Railroaders' Nostalgia > IN a VHS crisis

I have a rather large pile of VHS tapes featuring train videos. Several of them cover Conrail lines such as the River line, boston line, chicago line, pittsburgh line and i need to figure out how to trade them in for DVD versions of those same videos. Another thing is they are mostly from Highball productions and Dick Eisfeller but fear it will cost a fortune to replace everything with DVD

nick

If your tapes are in good shape, you can find places that will turn them into DVDs for a not outrageous cost. It's well worth it if you want to preserve them with more modern technology. Costco used to have that service, but doesn't anymore.

Back in 2013 I bought a VHS to DVD copier deck and converted a bunch of my VHS tapes. Worth the $300 at the time as I had a bunch that were personal, not commercially produced. Only problem was some of the later commercial tapes could not be copied. Stupid me I threw them out should have kept them as I still had(have) the deck. Some are not available on DVD.
CR

I doubt that anyone would take VHS tapes in trade.  Copying seems the best option if you want them in DVD.  However, if you have a good VHS player you might just keep them and watch them on that.  I have older VHS and Beta tapes where that works reasonably well, although the life of a tape can be somewhat uncertain.

This topic seems far better suited to the Railfan Technology board than here. 

Chessie Wrote:
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> This topic seems far better suited to the Railfan
> Technology board than here. 

Well....VHS tapes are certainly nostalgic.....

Isn't copying commercial tapes onto DVDs a violation of copyright? I doubt anyone cares if you do it yourself. But I can't imagine some big company doing a lot of them. They're setting themselves up for a lawsuit.

I tore the tag of of my mattress once and I'm still doing time on Alcatraz for it!

engineerinvirginia wrote: "Well....VHS tapes are certainly nostalgic....." 

They are, but that is not the purpose of this forum.  The OP is well known for cluttering the Eastern forum with random posts, I don't want to see what is supposed to be a forum for industry insiders similarly cluttered. 

Buy a VHS to USB convertor. I bought a MyGica and I've been using it. I have well over 500 VHS tapes that I've accumulated over the years and so far I've converted 200 of them with no problems. 

It allows you to save them as a file to place them on a large external hard drive, or you can burn it to a DVD. I think I paid 30 bucks for it.

Chessie Wrote:
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> engineerinvirginia wrote: "Well....VHS tapes are
> certainly nostalgic....." 
>
> They are, but that is not the purpose of this
> forum.  The OP is well known for cluttering the
> Eastern forum with random posts, I don't want to
> see what is supposed to be a forum for industry
> insiders similarly cluttered. 

Thank you. Exactly right

Posted from Android

Don't waste your time and money to convert them to DVD or anything else.  How often are you going to watch these in the future? Once or twice maybe?  Just pop them in your VHS player and watch them.  They'll be fine to last the rest of your life time.  After that, who cares?

Topfuel Wrote:
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> Don't waste your time and money to convert them to
> DVD or anything else.  How often are you going to
> watch these in the future? Once or twice maybe? 
> Just pop them in your VHS player and watch them. 
> They'll be fine to last the rest of your life
> time.  After that, who cares?

that's what i do.  when i saw that vhs players were going by the way of the dodo bird, i bought a few of them.

the vhs/dvd combo players are still working for me.............

66

symph1 Wrote:
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> Isn't copying commercial tapes onto DVDs a
> violation of copyright? I doubt anyone cares if
> you do it yourself. But I can't imagine some big
> company doing a lot of them. They're setting
> themselves up for a lawsuit.

Actually no, it is not.  As long as it is for personal use.  There was a big to-do about this 20+ years ago, that my VHS-DVD conversion place explained to me.   You bought it, you own it, and are simply updating the play method.  As long as you are not reproducing it for sale, its not a violation.  

And yeah, just go find a loacl guy in town.  Usually only a few bucks a piece to do, and can get several onto one DVD.  

A better option is to digitize them with a "capture card" and put them on a USB thumb drive or hard drive that you can watch on your computer or smart TV.  As long as the files are for your personal use *only* and are not being shared online or distributed to others, there will not be any copyright concerns.   Believe it or not, DVDs are also becoming outdated technology. With the advent of online streaming, DVD sales have declined sharply in the past decade.  I haven't bought or watched a DVD myself during that same period, and the only device I have capable of playing one is my computer!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/19/21 01:14 by i64west.