Re: My Old VCR Tapes

On May 6, 3:24 pm, "Steven L." <sdlit...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Artis wrote:
Hello all,

When the old TV sets die in 2008, and we are all forced to go
digital, what will I do about my old VCR tapes? I have some that I
don't want to throw away, that may not ever be available on DVD. Such
as tapes of Elvis, horse racing, etc. Not ones that I taped, but ones
that I bought as products.

The REAL problem is that your analog VCR won't last forever; and
eventually they will just stop manufacturing analog VCRs like they did
with 8-track audio tape players. Then you'll be forced to scrounge on
EBay for used ones. (Or pay top dollar to whatever manufacturer still
bothers to produce a few.) So it's a good idea to start converting the
tapes to digital media so you won't be dependent on antique equipment.

Physically copying the tapes to another medium is easy in theory. It's
just a matter of getting the right hookups. Heck, I can copy TV output
from my VCR to my computer's external hard drive through my computer's
cable input. Go talk to Radio Shack if you're not sure how to hook up
your VCR to your computer or DVD recorder.

If it's a lot of tapes, you might just pay a professional to copy them
to DVD for you.

The problem is that some commercial tapes may have Macrovision copy
protection that prevents copying to another medium. I don't know if a
professional service will do it for you in that case either.

In that case, you need a black box to break the Macrovision copy
protection. And those things exist too. Go search Google.

--
Steven D. Litvintchouk
Email: sdlit...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.

Thank you all for your replies. I was glad to hear that digital TV
sets can be made compatible with old DVDs. All those boxes, though, I
fear will overload a television set. I guess my VCR is going away
finally. Too bad.

.

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