Affordable VHS to Digital Service (Europe)?

[taigi]

Could anyone recommend a good, reasonably priced service in Europe for converting VHS tapes to high-quality digital files?

[Sharc]

Could anyone recommend a good, reasonably priced service in Europe for converting VHS tapes to high-quality digital files?

Apparently not
Do it yourself.

[lollo]

https://www.video99.co.uk/ (DV workflow)

[aramkolt]

Only one I've heard of in Europe is video99 as well, and that's mainly because of his YouTube videos where he shows a lot of repair/maintenance on his machines. You'll get mixed opinions on DV capture (which is what he does as noted by Lollo), but you could do much worse and there's basically zero chance of audio sync issues. He is quite aware of timebase correctors, but I'm not sure if he uses them with all formats or not when he does his tape digitizing. I know for U-matic, he does likely run everything through a frame TBC, but for VHS, he might just use a machine with a line TBC and that's it - maybe, but I'm sure he'll answer your question or you could request a certain chain to be used if you're worried about it. Generally, the man has enough experience that I'd let him use whatever chain he feels is appropriate just knowing it'll be a DV capture.

I'm still under the impression that DV hardware capture boxes do have a "line TBC effect" most of the time and aren't particularly prone to dropping frames (even without an external TBC), but I haven't done testing as of yet being busy with some other projects. I might actually test that with U-Matic since you can create all kinds of interesting errors with the skew lever (which affects tape tension) and the manual tracking.

[dvd3500]

I own a British sport cars (Triumph Spitfire) and for years I usually got parts from the UK.
I have had to stop though because customs has made it a headache getting things from the UK to Germany.
They will likely charge you customs on the tapes maybe even in both directions unless you can somehow prove this is not a purchase.
Maybe your country's officials are not as pedantic as the Germans though... Good luck!

[taigi]

Apparently not
Do it yourself.

Okay, see the results. How well did I do?

[dellsam34]

I own a British sport cars (Triumph Spitfire) and for years I usually got parts from the UK.
I have had to stop though because customs has made it a headache getting things from the UK to Germany.
They will likely charge you customs on the tapes maybe even in both directions unless you can somehow prove this is not a purchase.
Maybe your country's officials are not as pedantic as the Germans though... Good luck!

I've sent a gift to my cousin from US to France by mail and was forced to pay customs fees or it will be returned on my expense, I even told them I don't know how much the item worth, I had to make a fake value and ended up paying 80 euros, You know now why we hate tarrifs in the US, it is always paid by the consumer.