I was recently recording old VHS tapes onto my computer using a dongle that plugged into the VCR, however I had trouble finding the right drivers and programs to help. It also seems from some research that most of these dongles don’t have any support past Windows 7, so was wondering if anyone can recommend a dongle or product and/or app I can use/buy to help me keep recording?
I have some old tapes I wish to get content off but nothing seems to work anymore.
I bought a VHS to USB dongle and have had zero problems with it on Windows 10.
You need to use the right software - this is the important part.
I was trying some “crappy” software and the audio and video kept going out of sync, but once I started using OBS (it’s free), its been smooth sailing since!
(And I must say, OBS is literally the best recording software on the market).
By DVD recorders do you mean you’re using VCR/DVD Recorder combo units? Or recording to a seperate DVD recorder device then, presumably ripping those to PC?
Nicholas, what is this OBS program - is it this one?
If so, have you been able to get your VCR dongle to talk to this program successfully?
I recall I had no issues a few years ago using the same dongle but obviously since then I have upgraded to windows 10 and I’ve tried so many drivers and any program I could find, I came to using one for audio only and another for video only, no program would do both for some reason and then they just seemed to not work at all anymore.
Yes that’s the website.
I’ve recorded over 40+ VCRs using my dongle and this program.
OBS is a streaming/recording program which many streamers use, but it’s also very good for just importing your VCR video source and recording the source to a file.
Unfortunately the quality is super great but I’m pretty sure it’s because of the actual VCR (it’s an older model with only white and yellow plugs, not red)
Also wondering if my dongle is the issue, it’s just one of the cheap ebay ‘EasyCAP’ ones, which one do you use? Might look at buying a better quality one that actually works!
I think I had success previously with VideoReDo but I seem to be missing a working driver, Nicholas, any chance you have a way to tell me what driver you’re using? There’s so many out there that promise to work but all the ones I try all seem to have errors when installing or install fine but won’t pick it up at all.
OK, No worries. I think it did come with a tiny CD but no idea where that would be now, thanks anyway, lets hope I can get it working, a friend has just promised me his old VHS collection so excited to see whats on there!
Just an update, my partner had a play around and managed to get my computer picking it up on OBS, thanks for all your help Nicholas (and everyone else) now I can finally record some more old VHS content from the 90’s!
Only issue I had was it was picking up my PC mic but managed to turn that off, got it working and surprised how easy it is after so many programs I tried before being a complete mess, will be uploading some stuff tonight on the channel from Capital 7 mainly, currently editing some Lifestyle and Showtime promos.
Just wanting to reboot this topic to discuss best methods for capturing VHS. My set up for capturing is a Elgato 4K60 Pro Mk.2 with a Panasonic (and now a LG) VCR/DVD combo unit (with HDMI out at 1080p50).
I did want to do a straw poll on which unit looks better:
