Old Video Tapes And Cds

[taichiperson]

As above - both my house and my mother's are cluttered with the things. Is there anything we can do apart from send them to landfill?

[Buenchico]

The question of what to do with old VHS tapes has come up countless times on AB, with nobody able to offer a solution. Most charity shops stopped accepting them around a decade ago (except possibly for some rare boxed sets and specialist interest videos, such as those for rail enthusiasts). So landfill may well be your only option.

However nearly all charity shops accept CDs.

[fender62]

is there a freecycle in your area, https://www.freecycle.org/browse/UK

[whiskeryron]

Because I cannot bear to throw anything away, I transferred all useful VHS tapes to DVD discs which take up less room.

[Eleena]

Morning whiskyron,
can I ask what equipment you need to do that? I've loads that I'd like to transfer.

[murraymints]

I have been putting CD to memory sticks...even less room needed ! Lina I have a VHS to CD machine, and digitise on the lappy

[Eleena]

murray, might have to look in to that, I'll have a look on ebay thanks x

[Eleena]

Did you hear dvd murray?

[Eleena]

hear .. meant mean.

[murraymints]

lol..indeed..although I can copy to both dvd and cd...but digitising to sticks mean doazens can go on a tiny wee thing

[Eleena]

Well, I'm very excited! Thsnks, just found a machine that does these things murray. It'll be fantastic to be able to watch old videos of when my children were small. No doubt my late father will be on there too, thanks x

[murraymints]

that will be nice Lina..have lots of dad but not able to watch them yet ...still too raw for me

[Eleena]

I can understand that.

[whiskeryron]

Eleena, if you still have your VCR machine you will need to buy a DVD recorder ( several at Amazon) to transfer tapes to DVD, or alternatively a VCR / DVD combination recorder ( again several on sale at Amazon). Ron.

[bhg481]

Be careful which DVD recorder you buy as not all will record from anything other than a built-in tuner. They might have SCART or HDMI sockets on them but they are mostly only for output to a TV.
There are also a number of high street shops which will transfer VHS to DVD for you; they are not cheap but it saves you a lot of time. Unlike cassettes VHS can only be copied at normal speed ie, it takes 3 hours to copy a 3 hour tape and gets very tedious, although it does give you a chance to watch it again and miss out bits you don't want.

[Eleena]

Hi whiskyron, no I no longer have a 'vcr '
The machine I'm looking at is the .. Toshiba dvr 20/vcr/vhs to dvd recorder.

[Eleena]

bhg, thanks for your feedback. Would the above machine be o.k?

[bhg481]

Eleena - it looks OK. There is also a couple of Panasonics on Amazon which are cheaper if you search for VCR.
Depending how many tapes you want to copy it might be worth looking into having a shop do it for you. A random Google search came up with this:

https://www.groupon.co.uk/deals/showtime-film-conversions-5?keyw=converting%20vhs%20to%20dvd&crea=221974832822&netw=g&adpos=1t1&utm_campaign=UK_DT_SEA_GGL_TXT_TTT_SR_CBP_CH1_NBR_k*converting%20vhs%20to%20dvd_m*b_c*221974832822_d*UK-RTC-KWService-National_g*RTC-KWService-showtime-film-conversions-5-BROAD_s*510_t*kwd-17061841&utm_source=Google&utm_medium=cpc&loc_physical_ms=1006906&loc_interest_ms=&template=ETA_DKI_KWService1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI-rvVnv751wIVa7XtCh1YFQxrEAAYASAAEgIjN_D_BwE

You can get a lot copied for the price of a machine.

[murraymints]

lina..that's the one I have..easy peasy

[bhg481]

Just an extra thought for you - however you copy your VHS onto DVD you can use your computer to make as many copies of each DVD as you wish, so long as your computer has a DVD writer on it. It's common sense to make a backup copy anyway as DVDs can go bad. If you don't have a DVD writer it's easy to fit one into most desktops for about £10-15 or you can get stand-alone ones for about £20-30 that just plug into a USB socket. You only need one as the computer will copy from DVD#1 to memory and then prompt you to replace DVD#1 with DVD#2 to write it.

[Eleena]

Thanks bhg for all that info. A start would be to actually find the box of videos before cashing out on one of these! Also as you say to see what else is out there, though I do like the look of that model, much appreciated.