Speaker 1: The DIY way to transfer your old home videos to digital.
Speaker 1: What's going on, I'm Rich Dmiro, this is Rich on Tech. Okay,
Speaker 1: take a look around your house. If you're like most Americans,
Speaker 1: you probably have a bunch of old video tapes lying around.
Speaker 1: We're not talking about Hollywood movies here, We're talking about
Speaker 1: the old family memories. Yeah, the ones that were recorded
Speaker 1: probably on some sort of camcorder, whether it's high eight, VHS, VHSC,
Speaker 1: whatever you got, mini DV.
Speaker 2: Think about it.
Speaker 1: These tapes have now been around for maybe ten twenty
Speaker 1: thirty years. Those are analog tapes, and the memories and
Speaker 1: the images on them will not last forever. So I'm
Speaker 1: going to show you the easy way to transfer them
Speaker 1: to your computer and do it all on your own.
Speaker 1: Now here's the thing. If you are comfortable with sending
Speaker 1: these tapes out to a third party, then.
Speaker 2: Go do it.
Speaker 1: But to me, I don't like the idea of my videotapes,
Speaker 1: which are mostly my family's tapes, leaving my hands because
Speaker 1: guess what if something happens in transit, something goes wrong,
Speaker 1: they get lost, there.
Speaker 2: Is no getting them.
Speaker 1: That's why I'm going to go through the process of
Speaker 1: doing it yourself, which, yes, takes a little bit of time,
Speaker 1: it takes a little bit of effort, it takes a
Speaker 1: little bit of equipment. But I think you'll be very
Speaker 1: happy knowing that your tapes are safe and sound in
Speaker 1: your house. And it's kind of fun to watch these
Speaker 1: things go to digital because you do find some moments
Speaker 1: here and there that are really fun and interesting and
Speaker 1: things that you kind of forgot about that happen in
Speaker 1: your life. Here's what you need to go from tape
Speaker 1: to digital. First off, you need your old tapes. These
Speaker 1: could be in a variety of formats, VHS, VHSC, Mini, DV,
Speaker 1: high eight, whatever you got. You can play them and
Speaker 1: you can digitize them. You also need a captured device.
Speaker 1: I'll explain that in a moment. You need a computer,
Speaker 1: and then you need a safe place to store your
Speaker 1: digital files, preferably online and also somewhere that's in your house.
Speaker 2: You also need a way to play your old tape.
Speaker 1: So if you have saved your camquorder or VCR, give
Speaker 1: yourself a pat on the back, because guess what, so
Speaker 1: many of us threw these things away many years ago
Speaker 1: or sold them at groad sales. If you have one,
Speaker 1: you are in luck because that's going to make this
Speaker 1: process so much easier. If you you don't have one, well,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be a little bit tough because there are
Speaker 1: replacements online on eBay and things like that, but they
Speaker 1: are expensive. People know that people want these things to
Speaker 1: digitize tape. So you're talking, You're not gonna find a
Speaker 1: VCR for fifty bucks. You're gonna find it for maybe
Speaker 1: one hundred or two hundred dollars.
Speaker 2: So if you.
Speaker 1: Can, I recommend pinging your friends and family, put a
Speaker 1: notice out on Facebook saying, hey, does anyone have a
Speaker 1: high eight cam quarter or does anyone have a VCR
Speaker 1: I can borrow because that's gonna be your best bet.
Speaker 1: And then maybe it'd be nice for the person that
Speaker 1: lent you this thing. You can do a tape or
Speaker 1: two for them and then show them how to do
Speaker 1: it and they can do the rest themselves. All right,
Speaker 1: So once you have everything in place, you can begin.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: The thing I haven't talked about yet is the capture device.
Speaker 1: This is one of the key parts of the process.
Speaker 1: So I tested several of these things. I tested two
Speaker 1: that worked really well. One is the El Gato Video
Speaker 1: Capture for Mac and this one sells for about eighty
Speaker 1: dollars on Amazon, and it's the best. El Gato makes
Speaker 1: the best equipment for Mac capture and it says it
Speaker 1: works for PC as well. I did not test it
Speaker 1: on PC, but it does work for me and it
Speaker 1: is perfect.
Speaker 2: It really is a great device, even though it is
Speaker 2: a little pricey.
Speaker 1: The other one I tested is the Roxio Easy VHS
Speaker 1: to DVD three for PC, and this one is very similar,
Speaker 1: very similar equipment. The software is different, but this one
Speaker 1: was about forty dollars on Amazon, maybe forty five. And
Speaker 1: this worked really well on a PC system. And here's
Speaker 1: the thing I did find with the Roxio which was
Speaker 1: kind of weird. They put the software on a disc,
Speaker 1: so you need a disk drive on your computer to
Speaker 1: install the software. And you're probably thinking your head, oh, Rich,
Speaker 1: I'll just go to their website and download the software. Well,
Speaker 1: guess what, they don't really have the software on their
Speaker 1: website to download, so I had to do a workaround,
Speaker 1: which involved basically hooking up my disk drive to my
Speaker 1: Mac computer, copying over the entire contents of the Roxio CD,
Speaker 1: and then transferring all that stuff via flash drive to
Speaker 1: my Microsoft computer my Windows computer and then installing the
Speaker 1: software that way, and then I had to download a
Speaker 1: patch for Windows ten from the Roxio website. So yes,
Speaker 1: it can be done, but just be prepared. If you
Speaker 1: you don't have a disk drive on your computer. On
Speaker 1: your PC, it will take a little bit longer to
Speaker 1: do that. Now, buyer beware, there are lots of cheap
Speaker 1: models of these video capture devices on Amazon. You can
Speaker 1: get them for US cheap as like fifteen to twenty
Speaker 1: five dollars, but do not get them.
Speaker 2: Just skip them.
Speaker 1: I did order one on Amazon for the Mac and
Speaker 1: it was such a pain to set up the software.
Speaker 1: Everything was messed up. So just don't do it. Just
Speaker 1: stay away, go with one of the recommendations, either the
Speaker 1: Elgato or the Roxio, and you'll be a lot happier
Speaker 1: because you will skip all the frustrations that I had
Speaker 1: in trying to get one of these cheapis to work. Okay,
Speaker 1: So now that you've got your video capture device, you
Speaker 1: have to connect that to your computer. Usually it's through USB,
Speaker 1: and then you connect your player to this device. So
Speaker 1: if you have your old camcorder or your VCR, you're
Speaker 1: gonna connect it and you're gonna use those composite cables.
Speaker 1: Remember those Those are the cables that have the yellow, white,
Speaker 1: and red breakout cables. You're gonna connect those to the
Speaker 1: player and then also to the video capture device. My recommendation,
Speaker 1: if your player can handle S video, use that for
Speaker 1: the video portion of your cable connection. So you'll still
Speaker 1: have to connect your red and you're white for your audio,
Speaker 1: but then you'll use the S video. That way you
Speaker 1: can get the clearest connection. Believe me, these videos are
Speaker 1: not gonna look so good because we're so used to
Speaker 1: HD and four K. These videos are gonna look pretty
Speaker 1: bad compared to what you have, but it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: The memories on them are so worth it that it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter how bad they are. You will forget about
Speaker 1: all that stuff because once you see the memories on
Speaker 1: these things, you'll still love them.
Speaker 2: Okay, so now you have everything connected. Now for the
Speaker 2: fun part.
Speaker 1: You pop in the tape and you press record on
Speaker 1: your computer using the software that they provide while the
Speaker 1: tape plays. And keep in mind, this transfer is going
Speaker 1: to happen in real time, so this is the longest
Speaker 1: part of the process. So if you have a ninety
Speaker 1: minute tape. It's gonna take your computer ninety minutes to
Speaker 1: record that tape to its hard drive. Also, keep in
Speaker 1: mind you need to have sufficient hard disk space before
Speaker 1: you begin. These things are going to take up a
Speaker 1: lot of space on your hard drive. We're talking gigabytes here.
Speaker 1: Make sure you have either an external hard drive or
Speaker 1: a lot of space on your internal drive so that
Speaker 1: you don't have any sort of problems in the middle
Speaker 1: of your recording where your hard drive runs out of space.
Speaker 2: And then you have to start over again.
Speaker 1: Once the tape is finished recording, the software will give
Speaker 1: you the option to edit it or just keep it
Speaker 1: as is. So what I did basically is I didn't
Speaker 1: worry about editing these tapes as I went along. Once
Speaker 1: I had them on my hard drive, all I did
Speaker 1: was use the little sliders at the end to kind
Speaker 1: of clip off the beginning and the end. Because sometimes
Speaker 1: you might just have a blank screen at the beginning,
Speaker 1: or let's say your tape only ran thirty minutes, but
Speaker 1: you're recorded for an hour. Because you don't want to
Speaker 1: miss anything, you can just use the little handles on
Speaker 1: either end of the software that they provide to kind
Speaker 1: of clip the blank video off of the end, and
Speaker 1: then you save the file to your computer. So basically,
Speaker 1: at this point you now have a digitized tape on
Speaker 1: your computer's hard drive.
Speaker 2: And the next step is crucial.
Speaker 1: You have to back up that digitized tape in a
Speaker 1: safe place. So I recommend Google Photos for several reasons. First,
Speaker 1: you can store as many any videos as you want
Speaker 1: there for free. Google Photos lets you store videos for
Speaker 1: free up to ten eighty so HD. None of these
Speaker 1: videos that you're saving are gonna be HD, so basically
Speaker 1: you can save all of them for one hundred percent free,
Speaker 1: as many as you want. Second, Google Photos does this
Speaker 1: really cool thing where it actually identifies the people and
Speaker 1: places inside your videos. So that means that you will
Speaker 1: see a list of all the videos that contain your mom,
Speaker 1: your dad, your uncle, earl. You can search for things
Speaker 1: like Christmas in your videos. Google Photos will slice and
Speaker 1: dice all the data is sees inside your videos. I
Speaker 1: know it's pretty amazing and that alone is worth using
Speaker 1: it just to store these videos. So to upload your
Speaker 1: videos to Google Photos, what I want you to do
Speaker 1: is navigate to the website photos dot Google dot com
Speaker 1: and then drag and drop the file from your computer
Speaker 1: to the website. Now you might be saying, rich, oh,
Speaker 1: I've got a sync program on my computer, I don't
Speaker 1: need to drag and drop.
Speaker 2: I want you to drag and drop it for a
Speaker 2: big reason.
Speaker 1: The way Google Photos Sync the desktop app works on
Speaker 1: your computer. If you delete that file in your hard drive,
Speaker 1: there's a chance it could delete that file out of
Speaker 1: Google Photos. And you do not have that problem when
Speaker 1: you drag and drop the file on the website. So
Speaker 1: I want you to use the website photos dot Google
Speaker 1: dot com, and that way you know that your video,
Speaker 1: once you put it in there and you upload it,
Speaker 1: it's going to be there forever. The other thing I
Speaker 1: want you to do is that once you upload all
Speaker 1: these videos that you digitize, I want you to add
Speaker 1: them to an album. That way they don't get lost
Speaker 1: among all the other photos and pictures that you're taking
Speaker 1: in real time. Because this way you'll be able to
Speaker 1: find all of your digitized videos later on. The other
Speaker 1: way you can store your videos is on YouTube. You
Speaker 1: can do this for free as well. When you're uploading
Speaker 1: them to YouTube.
Speaker 2: Just be sure to pick the unlisted option, not the
Speaker 2: public option. This will give you more privacy and.
Speaker 1: Basically means that someone on YouTube can't search for your video,
Speaker 1: but you can take that same YouTube link that you're
Speaker 1: used to send it to any of your friends or
Speaker 1: family and they can view the video without logging in. Now,
Speaker 1: if you really want to be private, you can use
Speaker 1: the private upload option. This is the most private way
Speaker 1: you can be on YouTube because you can share the
Speaker 1: link with anyone, but even if they click it, they
Speaker 1: will not be able to access the video. They have
Speaker 1: to be pre approved, You have to add them to
Speaker 1: a certain list, and then they have to log in
Speaker 1: with their YouTube account to access it. So I don't
Speaker 1: really recommend that for friends and family because it's going
Speaker 1: to be a pain for them to access your videos,
Speaker 1: but it is the most private, So if you're looking
Speaker 1: for privacy, that's the way to go. I've noticed a
Speaker 1: couple things about the way we used to record compared
Speaker 1: to today.
Speaker 2: What we used to do is have.
Speaker 1: A sixty minute tape and you'd have a bunch of
Speaker 1: different family functions on there. So the first ten minutes
Speaker 1: would be a birthday party, the second ten minutes would
Speaker 1: be you know, day out on the farm, you know,
Speaker 1: petting zoo.
Speaker 2: The next ten minutes.
Speaker 1: Nowadays, we have all individual clips, so if you want,
Speaker 1: you can go back and edit all of your videos
Speaker 1: and make them into individual clips, which I've been doing,
Speaker 1: but again that takes a little bit of time.
Speaker 2: I've been using QuickTime. If you have a Mac computer,
Speaker 2: it's super easy.
Speaker 1: You just open it up in QuickTime and you can
Speaker 1: literally trim the clips. That way, you don't have to
Speaker 1: use final cut. But if you're on a Windows computer,
Speaker 1: probably want to use the software that rocks you provides
Speaker 1: you to edit that as well.
Speaker 2: Now here's there's the other thing.
Speaker 1: You need to make sure your videos are backed up
Speaker 1: in two different places before you chuck those old tapes.
Speaker 2: So once you have.
Speaker 1: These things digitized, there's not really a reason to keep
Speaker 1: the old tapes around, but you have to have them
Speaker 1: uploaded and backed up in two different places. So that
Speaker 1: can be a combination of an external hard drive along
Speaker 1: with Google Photos. It could be Google Photos along with
Speaker 1: one edrive. It can be iCloud along with Google Photos.
Speaker 1: But where whatever you do, you need to have these
Speaker 1: videos in two different places. That way, if one place
Speaker 1: goes down, one place gets corrupted, you still have them
Speaker 1: in a second place. I don't want you coming to
Speaker 1: me in a year and saying, Rich, I lost all
Speaker 1: my videos because I digitize the tapes and.
Speaker 2: I never back them up. Please, I don't want to
Speaker 2: ever get that email. All right, there you have it.
Speaker 1: It's a time consuming process, but I have been enjoying this.
Speaker 1: My family has been enjoying it. It's so easy and realistically,
Speaker 1: the only thing that it takes of you is your time.
Speaker 1: So put the time in, digitize those old tapes, and
Speaker 1: have a lot of fun with it. If you have
Speaker 1: any questions, you can email me, or you can tweet me,
Speaker 1: or you can post to my Facebook page. I'm happy
Speaker 1: to answer them because I've been doing this process now
Speaker 1: for the past couple of weeks and I've definitely figured
Speaker 1: out what works and what doesn't work.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 1: If you like this podcast, be sure to take a
Speaker 1: screenshot of it and post it to social media and
Speaker 1: tag me so I can see the love. I'm Richdmiro,
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening. You can find links to
Speaker 1: everything I talk about here on my website. Just go
Speaker 1: to richon tech dot tv, or I'll post them in
Speaker 1: the show notes.
Speaker 2: I will talk to you real soon.