VCR to Computer - How to connect, watch and record old VHS tapes

hey everybody i hope you're doing well out there  today i'm going to be walking you through how to   hook up your vcr to a computer now you might be  asking yourself why in the world why do i want   to do that if you're somebody like me i grew  up in the 80s i've got tons of old vhs tapes   i have a vcr but i don't have it hooked up to my  tv because it's just not very practical to watch   these old tapes anymore but what i wanted  to do is get these tapes onto my computer   so that i would have digital files of them  either to save those or to load them on youtube   and then if i wanted to get rid of the vhs  tapes i could if not at least i had the video   content saved off digitally somewhere so i'm  going to walk you through how to do this first   let me say if you go out on youtube there's tons  of videos about how to do this i found that every   one of them i watched somebody was trying to  sell me some kind of fancy equipment or some   kind of fancy software to do it you don't need  to do that i did this whole thing for under fifty   dollars and it would be less than that depending  on which of these items you might already have   so uh bear with me uh this is gonna be kind of  a tricky video to do but i'm gonna try and do   it as best as i can and walk you through it in  case you're wanting to try and convert some of   your old tapes to uh digital so there's a couple  different things you're gonna need the very first   thing you're gonna need is the hardest thing to  find if you don't have it and that's an old vcr   so lucky for me i had a vcr if you go out there  and look on amazon or walmart or target you   just don't find many companies that sell these  anymore so if you don't have one your best luck   is probably to go to a garage sale or something  like that maybe you can find somebody who's   selling it because they don't need it anymore  so vcr is the very first step of the process the second thing you're going to need this is  where i was saying your cost is going to vary   i could not find my audio video cables now you  should have these if you've got a vcr because   this is what you use to hook up your vcr to  a tv you would also need this to hook it up   to the process that we're going to do i didn't  have these i got these on amazon these are ge   they cost me about six dollars i'm going to show  you some different items in this video i'm going   to put links to all the items in the video in case  you want to buy them but you don't have to just   like these audio video cables i bought them on  amazon you can go to walmart you can go anywhere   and find these uh on your own so just like before  the audio video cables are going to plug into your   vcr you should have some component ends either on  the front or on the back of your vcr (YOU HAVE TO   USE THE BACK ONES IN MOST CASES) and all you're  going to do is do some color coding red to red   yellow to yellow and white to white i'll  say this i had some that were i think green   blue and some other color you got to have the  yellow uh white and red or at least in my case   i couldn't get the other ones to work so i did  some research they said you got to have these   that's what i bought sure enough it worked fine  so first thing is vcr audio video cables okay   okay the next thing you're going to need is  you're going to have to buy this little gadget   so this is called an RCMA to HDMI converter  now i paid 13.59 for it if you look on amazon   there's tons of different ones  there's some that are cheaper   i went with this one because it had the  most reviews and the most positive reviews all this is is a little bitty converter box you'll  notice we've got the same colors as we have on the   vcr the only thing you really have on here is you  have a switch on the back or on the side i should   say that says 720p or 1080p and you're just going  to move this switch depending on what quality   you're looking to record to you also get a power  cord you do have to plug this into a power source   it can be your computer or if you've got a usb  head you can plug it into an electrical outlet   as well so what we're going to do is we're going  to take the power source we're going to plug it   into this then we're going to take the other  end of our audio video cables and we're going   to do the same thing as we did on the vcr red  to red white to white yellow to yellow okay so   hopefully you're with me so far you'll notice that  the other thing that's on this is an hdmi import so this is the other thing you'll need if  you don't have it you'll need an hdmi cord   a lot of people have hdmi cords these days  because everything pretty much runs on hdmi   if you don't again amazon walmart target you  can get an hdmi cord for five to ten bucks   some are more expensive depending on how fancy you  get i usually just get the cheap ones they work   fine for me we are going to plug in one end of the  hdmi cord into this box we've got this open end the next thing you're going to need now this is  where i messed up i just thought oh okay i bet   i can plug this into my computer and it'll work  well i plugged into my computer and i could never   get the vcr to display in my computer program  what you need is you need a video capture card   again i got this on amazon i paid 18.99 for it  there might be some other ones out there i'm going   to put a link to this one in there first let me  say all of these items i bought with my own money   i don't get paid anything for doing these videos  so i'm just showing you the items that work for me   you can try whichever ones you want they give you  a little extension piece here i didn't need that   all this is is a little converter one end of it  is uh hdmi one end of it is usb we're gonna take   the open end of our hdmi port we're  gonna plug it into this converter   so at this point we've got everything we need  we've got the vcr we've got the component cables   plugged into the vcr we've got the other  end of them plugged into this converter box   again we're going to power this converter box by  plugging it in we've got an hdmi cord running from   the converter box to this uh video capture  card and then we've got an open usb in here   we're also going to power the vcr obviously and  then we are going to plug this in to our computer   now this is the point of the video that when  you plug it into the computer you have to have a   software that's able to view the input that you're  putting in so i'm not real big on recommending   softwares but the one that you need for this is an  industry standard software it's called obs studio   it's totally free there's no spyware  there's no subscriptions nothing like that   it's the one if you happen to watch really in  my case the way i learned about is i've got kids   that play video games if you go out on youtube  and you watch any of these kids streaming their   video games that's the software that  most of them use is called obs studio   i'm gonna go on my computer and i'm gonna  open up obs studio because it is a little   bit tricky as far as the initial setup so  that you can see your vcr we'll look at that so i hope you're gonna be able to see my  computer screen okay and hear me out right   on the computer screen i've got a notepad of  just all the previous steps that we looked at   at this point i've powered my vcr by plugging it  into a wall outlet and i've plugged everything   else in which is basically the white uh converter  box the rca to hdmi converter box that we saw in   my previous steps as well as the video capture  card which is usb i should mention that i said   earlier that i didn't use the extension  piece that came with the video capture card the one thing that that does do  for you is it gives you more room   on your computer if you need to plug in a separate  usb item the video capture card is pretty thick   which is fine i don't need it but the extension  piece basically makes it to where when you plug   it in it's a little bit thinner maybe i can show  a screenshot of the item that i'm talking about   i don't need to confuse you here so what i'm going  to do is i'm going to minimize this now we've got   obs studio installed on our computer we need to  set up obs studio to be able to read the vcr that   we've got plugged into it so i'm going to double  click on ovs studio again i've got my vcr powered   on and i've got a tape in it when you turn it on  for the first time it's going to look like this   it kind of looks confusing it can be technical um  at the very bottom here first thing i should say   is you'll want to go look if you go to file and  you go to settings there's an option for output   this area right here shows you if you record  anything that you're viewing from obs studio   this is the path that it's going to put the video  files in so you want to know that just so you know   in a minute you're going to see what i'm talking  about i'm going to play my vcr and i'm going to   record what's showing on my vcr well you have  to know where that recording is going to go to   so you can go retrieve the file this is also where  you can change the format if you don't want mp4   uh you want dot mov something like that this would  be where your settings are but i just wanted to   show you that real quick when you go on here  for the first time down for sources you're going   to need to click the add button to add a source  and we are going to choose video capture device   up here you can name it if you want to you can  maybe call it vcr whatever you want but you don't   have to you can just leave video capture device  and you're going to do create new we're going   to click ok and you're going to want to change  the device and make sure it's set to usb video   then we're going to click ok what we're doing  right now is we should be pointing to your vcr   now i'm going to go on my vcr and i'm going to  hit the play button and now we are watching my vcr   on my computer through obs studio in all of  the previous steps that we looked at before   you'll notice down here on the bottom there's an  option for start streaming i can start streaming   this live video if i've got it hooked up to my  youtube channel or whatever and i can also do   start recording if i click start recording it's  going to record whatever i'm seeing from my vcr   onto my computer as an mp4 file same as what  i just showed you in the settings the one   thing i will mention and maybe i've just got  something set up wrong is you'll never hear   any sound like right now we're looking at a old  benadryl commercial but there's no sound on it   it actually records the sound you just won't hear  it until you do the playback so i'm going to do   stop recording i'll show you what i mean hopefully  it'll it'll play back and i'm going to stop my vcr and i'm going to go to the  file that it just downloaded here's that file want banks to compete over you  come to lendingtree.com fill out it's allergy season again where should  you turn for relief benadryl so anyway   we have successfully set up our vcr to be viewable  on our computer and we can actually record it   to without what we're viewing from our vhs tape  onto the computer using these steps the one thing   i'll mention is if you close obs studio now when  you go back into it it'll remember your source   so when i open it now you'll notice that the video  capture source is still there all i have to do is   hit play on my vcr it'll remember your settings  unless you happen to change them for some reason   it's really easy i hope this video  helps if you've got any questions   post them in the comments if this  video helped i'd appreciate a thumbs up   or a subscription uh let me know your  feedback let me know if you have any   problems with it let me know how it works  for you i hope it helps thanks for watching

Channel: JUMBLE

Views: 487,273

Keywords: VCR, TV, VHS

Id: rNPvHdwyoWI

Length: 12min 4sec (724 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 18 2021