Excellent news, everybody: My bar mitzvah movies from the mid-Nineteen Nineties are actually digitized for the ages.
Whereas I’ve no intention of truly watching them — oy, the embarrassment — I just lately obtained the unique tapes from my dad and mom and felt like they have been value preserving in a extra enduring type than VHS. I used to be in a position to do it for affordable because of my USB seize card, which I initially purchased to take screenshots of streaming gadgets for my TechHive column on twine slicing however which continues to have every kind of different neat makes use of.
Beneath, I’ll stroll by tips on how to digitize your individual VHS tapes or camcorder footage utilizing the identical strategies, plus just a few further tips that may make a USB seize card value contemplating.
This column first appeared in Advisorator, Jared’s weekly tech recommendation publication. Signal as much as get free tech ideas each Tuesday.
The {hardware}
The USB seize card is a thumb-sized gadget with an HDMI enter on one facet and a USB plug on the opposite. Join the seize card to your laptop’s USB port, then hook up any gadget with HDMI output, and you may document that gadget’s video utilizing a free program referred to as OBS (extra on that shortly).
Jared Newman / Foundry
Amazon is stuffed with seize playing cards from no-name manufacturers for beneath $20. Whereas the actual one I bought is now not obtainable, this one appears to be like fairly comparable, in a position to seize video at 1080p as much as 30 frames per second, or 720p at 60 frames per second. It makes use of a USB-C connector, but additionally has a USB-A adapter. (Alternatively, this one works the opposite method round.)
You’ll additionally want a VHS participant, in any other case referred to as a VCR. In the event you don’t have one accumulating mud in a closet — or don’t know anybody else who does — contemplate in search of one at a thrift retailer akin to Goodwill, looking on Fb Market, or shopping for on eBay.
In fact, most VHS gamers don’t have HDMI output — together with the one I pilfered from my father-in-law’s home for this venture — so that you additionally want a composite-to-HDMI adapter. I grabbed one on Amazon for $10.
The setup, ultimately, appears to be like like this:
VHS Participant → Composite video out → Composite adapter → HDMI out → USB Seize Card → PC.
I’m utilizing a Home windows desktop, however this setup ought to work simply as nicely with a Mac or Linux machine, or a Chromebook able to working Linux apps.
The software program
Jared Newman / Foundry
The opposite half of the equation is a free program referred to as Open Broadcaster Software program Studio, or OBS. It’s typically used to stream online game console footage on websites like Twitch and YouTube, however you can even use it to document from just about any HDMI video supply.
When you’ve put in OBS and attached the USB seize card, you’ll be able to document video with a handful of steps:
- Below “Sources,” hit +, then choose “Video Seize Machine.”
- Give the supply a reputation, like “Seize Card,” and hit “OK.”
- Choose “USB 3.0 seize” — that’s your seize card — beneath the Machine heading.
Jared Newman / Foundry
- To protect the VHS facet ratio, change “Decision/FPS Kind” to “Customized” and set the Decision to 640×480, then hit “OK.”
- Below “Audio Mixer,” make sure that the “Desktop Audio” and “Mic/Aux” sliders are set to zero or muted.
- If you wish to preview the tape participant audio earlier than recording, hit ⋮ beneath “Seize Card” within the Audio Mixer part, choose “Superior Audio Properties,” and set Audio Monitoring to “Monitoring and Output” for the Seize Card.
At this level, OBS ought to show your video once you hit play on the VCR, however solely in a small nook of the preview window. To repair this, drag the nook of the video so it fills the display, then transfer the video into the middle of the preview window.
Jared Newman / Foundry
Now, you’ll be able to hit play in your VHS participant, and hit “Begin Recording” in OBS. Wait till the video has completed and hit “Cease Recording,” and OBS will produce a video file within the MKV format, showing in your laptop’s video folder by default. You possibly can then trim it down with any video enhancing software program (I used the free Solveig AV1 Trimmer for Home windows) or use a program like DVD Styler to burn the video to DVD.
Extra OBS and seize card tips
A seize card and OBS aren’t the one methods to digitize a VHS tape. You may as well buy merchandise like Vidbox or Roxio VHS to DVD for this particular function, or pay knowledgeable to transform tapes in bulk.
But when you have already got a VCR, shopping for the required adapters will solely price you about $30, roughly half the value of these different options. And within the long-run, the cobbled-together resolution is a worthier funding. When you get the cling of OBS, it turns into a solution to document just about something. Some examples:
- Report from streaming gadgets: Plug a Roku or Hearth TV Stick into your seize card, and you may document video from streaming sources akin to Netflix or Disney+. You may as well right-click the preview window and choose “Screenshot (Supply)” to seize a nonetheless picture. That is how I illustrate most of my streaming gadget evaluations over at TechHive.
- Report your desktop: Hit the + button beneath “Sources” in OBS and choose Show Seize (to document your total display) or Window Seize (to document only one utility). Be aware that this received’t work with DRM video sources akin to Netflix.
- Report your self: Add your webcam as a supply from the Video Seize Machine menu to incorporate video of your self. You possibly can then overlay it onto different video sources to document your self offering shade commentary.
Be aware that you should use OBS’s “Scenes” menu to toggle between totally different setups, every with its personal structure and seize gadget. That method, you’ll be able to have a scene for digitizing VHS tapes, one other for recording from streaming gamers, and one other that overlays your webcam, all with out having to arrange the whole lot from scratch every time.
OBS can take a while to be taught — I’m nonetheless discovering a lot of its intricacies myself — however there’s a cause Twitch and YouTube streamers swear by it: With just a little follow, the potential use circumstances are virtually limitless.
This column first appeared in Advisorator, Jared’s weekly tech recommendation publication. Signal as much as get free tech ideas each Tuesday.