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General discussion

Burning multiple copies of VHS to DVD

Dec 11, 2004 5:13AM PST

Sorry if this has been beat to death, but am looking for the best stand alone DVD recorder that will give me the opportunity to make copies of a ton of old VHS Movies for members of my family . . . and to clean out some cabinet space.

Discussion is locked

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Thoughts
Dec 11, 2004 7:14AM PST

So many want to do this. Is it worth it?

My brother wanted to do this, bought a Magnavox DVD recorder and tons of disks. He isn't exactly happy with the results. One disk of several (made by Ritek) made on the same day (last May) in the same manner won't play anymore. The others do (so far).

You need 3 disks to put the contents of one VHS 120-min. tape recorded at 3X (extended play). Are you really going to save that much space?

I hate to be a wet-blanket party-pooper, but I was also all gung-ho about doing this very thing until I realized that IF the original tapes are in good condition and play nicely on your VCR, there's no real need to spend all the time and money to digitize them, especially when disks really have not yet proved themselves over the long run.

Maybe if you buy the best machine and disks you will have satisfactory results. The best for some old movies? Well, sorry for thinking out loud -- I'm just going through past experiences and musings in my head. Only you can be the judge as to the merit of such an undertaking.

It could be that our old VHS tapes outlast the disks.

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Thoughts
Dec 18, 2004 1:04AM PST

Certainly something to think about and I appreciate it. In fact it might just be even cheaper to buy DVDs for the movies I want rather than go thru the expense of changing them over. Thanks.

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Forget the DVD recorder
Dec 18, 2004 11:44AM PST