Suggest: VHS Player for conversion of old (maybe damaged) VHS Tapes?

[Beta Orionis]

Hello all,

I have some old VHS tapes, the cases damaged (partially melted) by a nearby fire. Long story. My old VHS VCR was destroyed in this event.

What might be a decent choice of a VHS player to play the tapes, to a video capture device, into a computer, to archive the video once and for all?

The tapes are over 20 years old, mostly originals recorded from a higher-end consumer grade VHS camcorder. As mentioned, the tapes may have some level of heat damage, so, ideally, the deck would be a good choice for making the best of a degraded signal. My main goal is to buy a (used?) VHS player for this job. There are some semi-pro to pro vintage units available, but are these actually as good for this kind of camcorder-generated video, as a good consumer grade? Also, while I'm willing to throw a few hundred dollars or so at this, I'm not inclined to do that if a $50 vintage will generate 99% of the quality (due to the age and condition of the tapes). Each transfer will be a one-off; I have no desire to play them over again once a successful transfer is made.

Please suggest some models I might get off eBay or Offerup. Should I look for a TBC-equipped unit? Will that help in these conditions? Should I target a pro unit, consumer-pro, or just a good consumer-grade?


While I'm at it, do you know of any devices which can clean VHS tapes, themselves? I plan to take the tapes out and place them in good cases. I don't know if there is a device which could automatically "wash" a tape? Even if I send it off to be restored somewhere? I've never found a company which restores old VHS tapes.

[dellsam34]

From the looks of it you are going to spend some good money to achieve your goals, If tapes being in heat they are most likely stretched or shrunk depends on how they were exposed to heat, which means they will have tracking errors that can only be recovered with high end equipment built in both line and frame TBC, Get some quotes from reliable sources and get them done right.

[Beta Orionis]

OK, I was hoping maybe a standard deck might get the job done *IF* there's anything there to be recovered, even if there might be some tracking issues. I didn't think of it being so distorted but maybe capturable via high-end equipment.

Question, then - what might be "reliable sources?" It's hard to wade through the dreck online and tell who is "reliable" that does this kind of work.

[dellsam34]

Good question, Few members here do capturing including myself but I would recommend you contact Lordsmurf first, he does this and have a website called digitalfaq.com