Tape transfer services?
 

I've got some older tapes (VHS-C, Hi-8 and even some VHS) that I'd like to have converted for use in editing. Anyone have any experience with a particular service? I've googled a bunch of them, but I'd rather work with a service that someone can personally recommend from experience.

Anyone at all?

i can tell you how to do it, pretty simple, editing and rendering is the longest and hardest part, dumping the tape to your drive is pretty simple and happens in real time.

I don't have a camera, deck, etc. That's why I was looking for a service. I have a lot of b roll, location and odds and ends footage that could be (possibly) used again for different things. Investing in a deck that plays the tapes, particularly hi 8 is more than curiosity is worth, lol.

you can buy a used hi-8 camcorder for 100 bucks or less, you're going to pay way way more than that to outsource it

Most of the places I've been looking for are about $15 a pop, so you are right, I'd be over that amount with the number of tapes I have.

I thought about it, but I was reading that most hi-8 camcorders are at the end of their lives, and that having a service do it with a deck yields a better quality result. You also have to transfer the hi 8 to another format to import it digitally,right? I heard that some otf the pro decks can actually upconvert, which I guess is part of what I'm hoping for.

a deck won't give you any better results, (providing the camera head is good and clean) for that matter a pro deck could have a bad or dirty head also

hi-8 camcorder will have firewire which will plug into your computer and your video editing program will handle the rest

as far as an analog tape like your VHS or regular 8mm you have two choices

1: you will need a pc with a video card with s video or composite cable inputs
or
2. you will need a dv camcorder (or possibly get a digital hi-8) with an upconvert feature
(a lot of the Sony camcorders have this feature) and I have used it a bunch, works great

so then you plug your analog VCR or reg 8mm cam into the digital camcorder via a composite or s-video cables and then plug your digital8 or dv camcorder into your computer via the firewire and capture just like you would normal dv

we can do it for you if you are interested...

edit: sorry i made a mistake in my post above

i said hi8 camcorder would have a firewire, got hi8 and dig8 mixed up (been a long time since i messed with them) i went minidv in 2002

so if you just have vhs, 8mm and hi8 tapes you will need to do opt 1 or 2

For the money you'd spend paying someone else to do the VHS-to-DVD conversions, you'd be better off going out and buying the gear yourself.

Likewise, I had a huge collection of VHS tapes from the 80s and 90s (much of it from camcorder recordings) and wanted to transfer much of it to DVD. I went out and bought a JVC HR-J693U VCR (Hi-Fi) and a Samsung DVDR-150 recorder - patched them together and have been workin' on the transfers now for a few months. The quality is good.