<p>As an alternative to buying an old VCR and using video capture, I would look into buying a VHS/DVD-R combo. <a href="https://www.ebay.com/itm/Insignia-IS-DVD100121-DVD-Recorder-VCR-Combo-VHS-To-DVD-No-Remote-Parts-Only/333759604632" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Here's one example</a> (not intended as a recommendation for listing or brand).</p>
<p>These were a relatively short-lived phenomena, maybe a few years in the late 2000s / early 2010s. I can't speak to the quality other than saying my mother-in-law had one and was happy with the results. Ultimately it has to do the same signal transformations that you're planning to do, but may have dedicated electronics to give a better result.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-12-19T19:30:19.213Z
Interesting solution that does make sense, not sure why you got a downvote.
Hashim Aziz
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-09-21T01:31:56.000Z
The reason why it should get downvotes is because it is not a very good solution, it is passable tho, you won't get the highest quality. It depends on the DVD recorder, but most of them will give you blocky, lossy mpeg2 compressed video. MPEG2 could be fine if used with high bitrate, not what you get from DVD recorders.
user206904
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-12-19T12:26:12.117Z
2020-12-19T12:26:12.117Z
kdgregory
<blockquote>
<p>so now I'm wondering if my tapes are marked as PAL SECAM, do I need a PAL VCR?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yes, VCRs partially deconstruct the signal to encode it on the tape, and so are specific to a particular analogue video format.</p>
<p>In practical terms, if you try to play a PAL tape in an NTSC VCR connected to a PAL TV, you'll probably get a distorted black-and-white image, or perhaps no usable signal at all.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I've seen a few local listings on eBay for NTSC VCRs, and confusingly I even saw one that said &quot;NTSC Playback on PAL TV&quot;</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It was very common to import North American tapes back in the day.  These VCRs can convert an NTSC format tape to PAL output for European TV sets.  The reverse also existed (though quite a bit rarer) in North America.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I see some are listed as 4-head, 6-head, Super Drive, etc.? Do any of these matter for my purposes?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>4 head machines have a slight advantage in quality, particularly with playing ELP/LP tapes.  The extra 2 heads in 6 head machines are only for recording.  And &quot;Super Drive&quot; just appears to be a Panasonic marketing term, as far as I can tell.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Is this true?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Sort of.  VCRs are temperamental machines, and it's all analogue.  During their heyday, the quality of video you'd get from units varied enormously.  A quality S-VHS machine recording to quality tape on a well-calibrated machine was almost as nice as 480p digital is, really.  But I think we're just about old enough to remember what VHS usually looked like.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Will I need to shell out for a more expensive S-VHS VCR to avoid sacrificing quality?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This would only really be necessary if the original footage was recorded as S-VHS.  If so, then yes.  Some later VHS machines can play S-VHS tapes with reduced quality.  Still, play S-VHS tapes on S-VHS machines.</p>
<p>S-VHS equipment was high-end, and so generally better quality than the cheap VCRs that proliferated in the 90s and 00s.  So you will often find a preference for S-VHS machines.  But a good quality S-VHS and VHS deck should play a VHS tape back equivalently well.</p>
<p>Practically speaking, for high quality, you'd want to play back on a good deck that has been calibrated and had its heads cleaned and belts replaced, etc.  That would mean a machine that's been maintained or refurbished, not something that's been sitting on a damp shelf for 20 years.</p>
<p>With all that said, a few years ago I transferred a relative's home movies with a cheap 20 year old VCR and it's about what one would expect for 1980s camcorder footage.  I fed it <em>The Great Mouse Detective</em> first though, in case it might have been a tape-eater.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-12-17T18:17:46.687Z
Thank you for addressing all of my points individually. To clarify the last point, are you saying that for VHS tapes there'll be no gain from buying an S-VHS?
Hashim Aziz
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-12-17T21:16:00.030Z
@Prometheus Edited.  Hopfully it answers your question, see the paragraph starting "This would only really be necessary if the original footage was recorded as S-VHS."
Exasperation
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-12-17T21:30:07.973Z
Where you said *"But a good quality S-VHS and VHS deck should play a VHS tape back equivalently well"*, did you mean VHS instead of S-VHS, or did you mean what you said? And is a VHS deck a separate piece of equipment? I always thought it was synonymous with a VCR unit.
Hashim Aziz
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-12-17T21:36:40.050Z
@Prometheus Sorry, deck is old jargon for a tape recorder.  Yes, I mean that there's no inherent quality advantage of playing a plain VHS tape on a S-VHS unit.  An S-VHS machine is just more likely to be designed & manufactured to a higher standard compared to the bottom end of VHS machines.
Exasperation
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-12-17T22:44:24.833Z
And presumably playing also includes recording/capturing?
Hashim Aziz
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-12-18T00:22:05.027Z
@Exasperation: Don't underestimate the importance of that last point.  Older high-end VCRs (and DVD players too, incidentally) are often better than anything that was on the market near the end of those formats' market lives.
supercat
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-12-17T01:07:30.013Z
2020-12-17T21:14:54.290Z
2020-12-17T21:14:54.290Z
Exasperation
<p><em>N.B. I considered posting this to <a href="https://hardwarerecs.stackexchange.com/">hardwarerecs</a> but not only is it much less active than this site, I also have a feeling there's a lot more specialist knowledge on the topic here, and practical questions about hardware that is no longer manufactured does appear to be on-topic.</em></p>
<hr />
<p>I have some family home videos on VHS that I'm responsible for digitising. I know I will need both a VCR and a USB capture card, but money is tight so there are a few important details I want to clarify before I spend anything.</p>
<h3>The Capture Card</h3>
<p>This is probably the easiest part, and I'll more than likely be buying
<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Capture-Converter-Recorder-Transfer-Camcorder/dp/B08F4FFB8G/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1" rel="noreferrer">this one here</a> as it seems to be the cheapest one without a lot of worrying reviews.</p>
<h3>The VCR</h3>
<p>The VCR will obviously be bought second-hand, but being born in the last decade of the 20th century, I'm just about old enough to remember having to choose between PAL/NTSC on my PlayStation, and don't have a lot of experience with VCRs themselves.</p>
<p><strong>Firstly:</strong> with regards to PAL vs NTSC, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHS#Tape_lengths" rel="noreferrer">Wikipedia indicates</a> that it does matter, so now I'm wondering if my tapes are marked as PAL SECAM, do I need a PAL VCR? I've seen a few local listings on eBay for NTSC VCRs, and confusingly I even saw one that said &quot;NTSC Playback on PAL TV&quot; <em>(see below)</em>, but actual PAL VCRs seem surprisingly hard to come by considering they would have presumably been the default where I live (in the UK).</p>
<p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/Yxxp3.jpg" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/Yxxp3.jpg" alt="NTSC playback on PAL TV" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Secondly:</strong> and perhaps most importantly, <a href="http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/video-workflows/8594-best-highest-quality.html" rel="noreferrer">this forum</a> suggests it's necessary to invest in an S-VHS VCR to get the best quality out of the videos:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Not only would it be a good idea [to invest in an S-VHS VCR], but it's practically an essential
requirement. Want to use a cheap VCR? Your &quot;highest quality&quot;
requirement just bit the dust. Good output begins with a quality
capture. No quality capture, no quality output. Period. For vcr's We
never never never recommend eBay or similar auction sites. You find
good VCR's in our marketplace forum. A recommended source for rebuilt
high-end VCRs and other rebuilt goods is Tom Grant's shop.</p>
<p>Recommended VCRs for NTSC and PAL are listed here: VCR Buying Guide
(S-VHS, D-VHS, Professional) for restoring video</p>
<p>Which of those VCR line you should consider depends on your analog
tape library. Are most of them retail tapes and tapes recorded at high
2-hour speed? All of the listed brands will do them justice. Are they
slow-speed recordings, 4 to 6 or 8 hours??? I'm afraid Panasonic is
your only choice. Slow-sped tapes look like crap on a JVC.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Is this true? Will I need to shell out for a more expensive S-VHS VCR to avoid sacrificing quality?</p>
<p><strong>Finally:</strong> are there any other VCR features I need to look for/avoid, that will improve/hinder the quality of the conversion? I see some are listed as 4-head, 6-head, Super Drive, etc.? Do any of these matter for my purposes?</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-12-17T00:04:27.150Z
Video on VHS is stored separately as luma and chroma, so if you don't use a VCR with S-Video output, you'll need a really good external comb filter to have any hope of recovering the original signal without dot crawl artifacts.
snips-n-snails
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-12-17T00:17:25.447Z
@occipita I can confirm that all the VCRs I've seen on eBay so far have been SCART, I chose the USB capture card because it contains the necessary SCART-to-composite cables.
Hashim Aziz
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-12-18T00:20:05.027Z
I suspect that the best way to digitize VHS tapes would be to capture the a relatively "raw" signal from the tape head, and then decode the color and perform any cleanup digitally.  In many cases where one sees what looks like tearing, what one is actually seeing is the output of a delay line which is used to fill in places where a tape drop-out was detected.  If one digitally captured the actual recorded signal with the drop-out, one could easily detect where the drop outs occurred and use motion interpolation techniques to clean them up.  If instead one captures the...
supercat
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-12-18T00:20:51.847Z
...result of the VCR's efforts at trying to clean them up, it may be harder to distinguish what parts of the picture one should use, and what parts should be discarded and reconstructed.
supercat
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-12-18T00:27:46.857Z
@supercat Would any of that be possible with the hardware I'm planning to use? My intended workflow was to capture from the VCR to DV via the USB capture card, and then apply any fixes in FFmpeg and/or Avisynth.
Hashim Aziz
<video>
What do I need to know about buying a VCR for digitising old VHS tapes?
Hashim Aziz
# What do I need to know about buying a VCR for digitising old VHS tapes?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2020-12-16)

*N.B. I considered posting this to [hardwarerecs](https://hardwarerecs.stackexchange.com/) but not only is it much less active than this site, I also have a feeling there's a lot more specialist knowledge on the topic here, and practical questions about hardware that is no longer manufactured does appear to be on-topic.*

---

I have some family home videos on VHS that I'm responsible for digitising. I know I will need both a VCR and a USB capture card, but money is tight so there are a few important details I want to clarify before I spend anything.

### The Capture Card

This is probably the easiest part, and I'll more than likely be buying
[this one here](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Capture-Converter-Recorder-Transfer-Camcorder/dp/B08F4FFB8G/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1) as it seems to be the cheapest one without a lot of worrying reviews.

### The VCR

The VCR will obviously be bought second-hand, but being born in the last decade of the 20th century, I'm just about old enough to remember having to choose between PAL/NTSC on my PlayStation, and don't have a lot of experience with VCRs themselves.

**Firstly:** with regards to PAL vs NTSC, [Wikipedia indicates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHS#Tape_lengths) that it does matter, so now I'm wondering if my tapes are marked as PAL SECAM, do I need a PAL VCR? I've seen a few local listings on eBay for NTSC VCRs, and confusingly I even saw one that said "NTSC Playback on PAL TV" *(see below)*, but actual PAL VCRs seem surprisingly hard to come by considering they would have presumably been the default where I live (in the UK).

[![NTSC playback on PAL TV](https://i.sstatic.net/Yxxp3.jpg)](https://i.sstatic.net/Yxxp3.jpg)

**Secondly:** and perhaps most importantly, [this forum](http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/video-workflows/8594-best-highest-quality.html) suggests it's necessary to invest in an S-VHS VCR to get the best quality out of the videos:

> Not only would it be a good idea [to invest in an S-VHS VCR], but it's practically an essential
> requirement. Want to use a cheap VCR? Your "highest quality"
> requirement just bit the dust. Good output begins with a quality
> capture. No quality capture, no quality output. Period. For vcr's We
> never never never recommend eBay or similar auction sites. You find
> good VCR's in our marketplace forum. A recommended source for rebuilt
> high-end VCRs and other rebuilt goods is Tom Grant's shop.
>
> Recommended VCRs for NTSC and PAL are listed here: VCR Buying Guide
> (S-VHS, D-VHS, Professional) for restoring video
>
> Which of those VCR line you should consider depends on your analog
> tape library. Are most of them retail tapes and tapes recorded at high
> 2-hour speed? All of the listed brands will do them justice. Are they
> slow-speed recordings, 4 to 6 or 8 hours??? I'm afraid Panasonic is
> your only choice. Slow-sped tapes look like crap on a JVC.

Is this true? Will I need to shell out for a more expensive S-VHS VCR to avoid sacrificing quality?

**Finally:** are there any other VCR features I need to look for/avoid, that will improve/hinder the quality of the conversion? I see some are listed as 4-head, 6-head, Super Drive, etc.? Do any of these matter for my purposes?

**Tags:** video

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Video on VHS is stored separately as luma and chroma, so if you don't use a VCR with S-Video output, you'll need a really good external comb filter to have any hope of recovering the original signal without dot crawl artifacts.  
> **username_0**: @occipita I can confirm that all the VCRs I've seen on eBay so far have been SCART, I chose the USB capture card because it contains the necessary SCART-to-composite cables.  
> **username_2**: I suspect that the best way to digitize VHS tapes would be to capture the a relatively "raw" signal from the tape head, and then decode the color and perform any cleanup digitally.  In many cases where one sees what looks like tearing, what one is actually seeing is the output of a delay line which is used to fill in places where a tape drop-out was detected.  If one digitally captured the actual recorded signal with the drop-out, one could easily detect where the drop outs occurred and use motion interpolation techniques to clean them up.  If instead one captures the...  
> **username_2**: ...result of the VCR's efforts at trying to clean them up, it may be harder to distinguish what parts of the picture one should use, and what parts should be discarded and reconstructed.  
> **username_0**: @username_2 Would any of that be possible with the hardware I'm planning to use? My intended workflow was to capture from the VCR to DV via the USB capture card, and then apply any fixes in FFmpeg and/or Avisynth.  

---

## 2 answers

### Answer by username_5 on 2020-12-17. Score: 9 | Accepted answer

> so now I'm wondering if my tapes are marked as PAL SECAM, do I need a PAL VCR?

Yes, VCRs partially deconstruct the signal to encode it on the tape, and so are specific to a particular analogue video format.

In practical terms, if you try to play a PAL tape in an NTSC VCR connected to a PAL TV, you'll probably get a distorted black-and-white image, or perhaps no usable signal at all.

> I've seen a few local listings on eBay for NTSC VCRs, and confusingly I even saw one that said "NTSC Playback on PAL TV"

It was very common to import North American tapes back in the day. These VCRs can convert an NTSC format tape to PAL output for European TV sets. The reverse also existed (though quite a bit rarer) in North America.

> I see some are listed as 4-head, 6-head, Super Drive, etc.? Do any of these matter for my purposes?

4 head machines have a slight advantage in quality, particularly with playing ELP/LP tapes. The extra 2 heads in 6 head machines are only for recording. And "Super Drive" just appears to be a Panasonic marketing term, as far as I can tell.

> Is this true?

Sort of. VCRs are temperamental machines, and it's all analogue. During their heyday, the quality of video you'd get from units varied enormously. A quality S-VHS machine recording to quality tape on a well-calibrated machine was almost as nice as 480p digital is, really. But I think we're just about old enough to remember what VHS usually looked like.

> Will I need to shell out for a more expensive S-VHS VCR to avoid sacrificing quality?

This would only really be necessary if the original footage was recorded as S-VHS. If so, then yes. Some later VHS machines can play S-VHS tapes with reduced quality. Still, play S-VHS tapes on S-VHS machines.

S-VHS equipment was high-end, and so generally better quality than the cheap VCRs that proliferated in the 90s and 00s. So you will often find a preference for S-VHS machines. But a good quality S-VHS and VHS deck should play a VHS tape back equivalently well.

Practically speaking, for high quality, you'd want to play back on a good deck that has been calibrated and had its heads cleaned and belts replaced, etc. That would mean a machine that's been maintained or refurbished, not something that's been sitting on a damp shelf for 20 years.

With all that said, a few years ago I transferred a relative's home movies with a cheap 20 year old VCR and it's about what one would expect for 1980s camcorder footage. I fed it *The Great Mouse Detective* first though, in case it might have been a tape-eater.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Thank you for addressing all of my points individually. To clarify the last point, are you saying that for VHS tapes there'll be no gain from buying an S-VHS?  
> **username_5**: @Prometheus Edited.  Hopfully it answers your question, see the paragraph starting "This would only really be necessary if the original footage was recorded as S-VHS."  
> **username_0**: Where you said *"But a good quality S-VHS and VHS deck should play a VHS tape back equivalently well"*, did you mean VHS instead of S-VHS, or did you mean what you said? And is a VHS deck a separate piece of equipment? I always thought it was synonymous with a VCR unit.  
> **username_5**: @Prometheus Sorry, deck is old jargon for a tape recorder.  Yes, I mean that there's no inherent quality advantage of playing a plain VHS tape on a S-VHS unit.  An S-VHS machine is just more likely to be designed & manufactured to a higher standard compared to the bottom end of VHS machines.  
> **username_0**: And presumably playing also includes recording/capturing?  
> **username_2**: @username_5: Don't underestimate the importance of that last point.  Older high-end VCRs (and DVD players too, incidentally) are often better than anything that was on the market near the end of those formats' market lives.  

---

### Answer by username_3 on 2020-12-19. Score: 0

As an alternative to buying an old VCR and using video capture, I would look into buying a VHS/DVD-R combo. [Here's one example](https://www.ebay.com/itm/Insignia-IS-DVD100121-DVD-Recorder-VCR-Combo-VHS-To-DVD-No-Remote-Parts-Only/333759604632) (not intended as a recommendation for listing or brand).

These were a relatively short-lived phenomena, maybe a few years in the late 2000s / early 2010s. I can't speak to the quality other than saying my mother-in-law had one and was happy with the results. Ultimately it has to do the same signal transformations that you're planning to do, but may have dedicated electronics to give a better result.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Interesting solution that does make sense, not sure why you got a downvote.  
> **username_4**: The reason why it should get downvotes is because it is not a very good solution, it is passable tho, you won't get the highest quality. It depends on the DVD recorder, but most of them will give you blocky, lossy mpeg2 compressed video. MPEG2 could be fine if used with high bitrate, not what you get from DVD recorders.  

---

