I suggest you look at this article coming out of Columbia Law School with regard to this question. Look especially at footnote 21, which addresses legacy formats copied to new formats for in-home use. It's an excellent article explaining copyright law.

It makes it pretty clear that what you want to do for this "little old lady" is both legal and appropriate. Our company has done this type of transfer for many years, destroying the VHS tape after the transfer has been made.

Jack

The main problem you will have is overcoming the copy protection in most commercial tapes. Capture devices/software will sense the protection signal and either refuse to work or present a corrupted image.

I happen to have an older Canopus ADVC110 which will overcome the protection.

There are probably other work-arounds that I am unaware of

So glad the VHS days are long gone. A truly horrid format.

Horrid?
Well, what alternative was there? - For consumers only Betamax and I suspect that in Britain at least VHS sounds like VHF, already associated with High-Quality audio broadcasts, whereas Betamax is a terrible word being sonically close to BeatMucks - I wonder if the Names played an important part, for many believe Betamax was technically superior - except ( someone correct me, kindly) the tape remained in contact with the heads, whereas with VHS the tape was allowed to disengage first. In the UK the machines were often on "Rental" so head-life may have been a concern.

Analogue formats were far easier to implement - at least until good A/D chips came along - Maybe due to Space-Race needs I wonder. Hence the delay in being Digital - and the first Digital systems were not that good, either!

H e y - H o

If whatever capture device you use will at least perform the transfer, the Macrovision protection is stored in the top 4 to 6 scan lines of the image. Normally on VHS this portion is neither used nor visible. What i've done for this is crop off the top and bottom 6 lines, since they aren't useful anyway. This also prevents the Macrovision code from being displayed on computer screen playback (when overscan isn't used). This prevents older playback systems from seeing it as protected and refusing to play it. It looks like annoying static so it's good to mask it off anyway.

The Sony DVMC-DA2 i've been using for many years ignores the protection. It passes it through, but doesn't hinder the capture process.

I usually put a mask over VHS transfers just because I find all the squiggly squirming annoying to watch. With the mask, part of the picture is nice and clean even if the program material is not. I have to admit, editing tape transfers is not my favorite thing to do. I've noticed that I'll pull weeds in the back yard in the hot sun to avoid doing it.

Thanks for the help. Most of the tapes are old documentaries and dont seem to have protection, or if they do the Canon cam I am using for a converter doesnt see it.
Rendering to MP4 seems terribly slow, any suggestions as to bit rate, resolution etc.
Brian

Familiar with Handbrake ?

Handbrake is great, but tends to be slow with vhs also. Encoding the noise and grain is the culprit. The weak denoise filter can help.

Best solution is a set-top VHS / DVD combo recorder. Panasonic is best. With a little prep in Videoredo, the files are editable in Vegas.

Also worth mentioning is VirtualDub with NeatVideo noise filter. A lot of us oldtimers still swear by it.
Then you can take the AVI from VDub and get amazing results in Handbrake.

"Horrid? Well, what alternative was there?"

I didn't say there were other options. All I know is that my relative's old 8mm film from the 50's and 60's holds up better than a format than came 25+ years later. No yucky color smearing. No yucky chroma shift. Etc etc.

But we obviously had to go through that period of video technology to improve and get to where we are today.

I remember paying over $1500 in 1984 dollars for an S-VHS camcorder. We never used my father's 16mm film camera again.

That was a huge mistake.

Yep. We chose convenience over quality.

"[I]Handbrake is great, but tends to be slow with vhs also. Encoding the noise and grain is the culprit. The weak denoise filter can help.[/I]"

The Denoise filter save bits, too. Anything over a "weak" makes human subjects look like plastic people to me.

Skills Update:

I read the Vegas Pro Manual and learned to use the mask in Pan / Crop even though my transparent .png mask has served me well.

You learn, you forget, you forget, you learn again, you forget, you forget, you forget...

If one has lots of time on their hands, NLMeans is a better denoiser in Handbrake.

I act like I have lots of time on my hands.

I've been told I look that way, by people who should know.
Out of curiosity, I'm going to try a vhs capture with NLMeans and see what I get.

I think most of will agree in retrospect that VHS was truly mediocre in many ways, especially when compared with modern technologies. But, at the time, it seemed miraculous to me -- an incredible bargain despite the relatively high initial cost of the equipment and media.

When I was a teen, I used to save up my money to buy Castle Films 8mm versions of my favorite Universal horror movies on 200ft reels, for about $15. As I recall, the running time topped-out at about 15 minutes. The ones I bought were silent and had occasion full-frame dialog inserts to suggest what was going on in a scene. Obviously, this made an already-short clip even shorter! But it was the only way I could see Boris Karloff lumbering around in my home at any time I wanted!

I bought my first VHS machine in February of 1979, at a cost of $1000 in 1979 money. At the time, that was probably 10% of what I made in a year. (Don't really remember.) The first T120 VHS blanks I bought -- RCA -- cost $25 each.

But what did I wind up with? The ability to record over-the-air broadcasts, including all those Universal horror movies in their entirety, with sound. And with my handy wired pause control, I could even omit the commercials while recording. This permitted me to fit 2 movies on a tape, which I could watch on my huge 21" television set -- not a little hand-cranked 8mm film viewer or a projection screen I'd have to set up in a darkened room!

In addition to the movies, I was able to capture broadcast concerts and performances by my favorite musicians, family 'tapies' made by my B&W video camera, and miscellaneous TV show episodes during their original run. Without this, I wouldn't have the last episode of Newhart with its clever, classic ending; live performances featuring Del Shannon and Marshall Crenshaw, the Alf Gilligan's Island episode, et al.

Sure, much of this stuff and more is available these days on youtube. And where did a lot of this material originate? VHS, that 'horrid' format. To dismiss it out-of-hand is akin to pooh-poohing the Declaration of Independence for being mimeographed rather than printed on a laser printer. (Ok, maybe a bit of exaggeration, but you get the point!)

Yeah, VHS pales in comparison with today's digital recording and high-res monitors. But, for many years, I considered the VHS recorder to be the best 'investment' of my life. No single consumer product that I came across provided a better value and captured more memories for what, in time, became a ridiculously-low cost by the time the format was ultimately replaced by superior technology.

Cbrillow, I share your sentiments. I used to buy the 8mm films of cartoons at my local department store. Betamax and VHS were a wonderful thing.