Converting some old VCRs to digital files

[canetoad]

Doing this for a good friend - a dozen or so VCRs with family gatherings and holidays going back to the 70s. She brought up a VCR player and I found a device online that would do the work - an August VGB350 which comes with it's own software.

If you remember those countless Cyberlink DVDs that were bundled with all sorts of hardware a decade or two ago - that's the kind of software it is. Unintuitive, unstable - VLC did a much better job at no cost.

Steaming through the VCRs - mind you, each converted file was between 6 and 15 gb the device stopped - dirty heads on the video player. No worries, we have an electronics shop in town.

The actually LAUGHED at me when I asked for a VCR head cleaning tape! Eventually found a cheapie online which took a week to arrive and tangled at first use. No biggie - just manually untangle and rewind only hurts your fingertips a little. But no matter how many rewinds, couldn't get the cheap piece of trash to actually do any cleaning.

Found and ordered another, twice as costly, head cleaner from a reputable Hi Fi store in Sydney. After a week of waiting, started giving the tools a surreptitious glance. It's amazing what you can learn online - after twenty minutes I was, if not an expert - sort of OK with opening up VCR players and manually cleaning the heads. Half an hour after I'd finished, the reputable cleaning tape arrived.

All up, an interesting little project that I'm in no rush to repeat. VCRs went extinct for a reason.