What if I don't have a VCR?

What if I don’t have a VCR?

Not many us prioritized holding onto our large and clunky VCR set top players thinking one day we would need them again. We'll discuss some ideas and options for finding one to use for the Capture phase.

Ask friends and family

The free method of this involves asking those close to you. Start by asking family as they somewhat also have stake in the project as the VHS memories you are trying to digitize contain footage of then. Check with grandparents to see if they have one still lying around in an office or closet. After that check with your parents to see if one might be lying around in a moving box in the attic or garage. If your immediate family doesn’t have one, try opening the inquiry to aunts, uncles, and cousins. If you have no luck finding one from family, try widening the search to close friends. Offer in exchange to digitize a couple of their own VHS tapes while you do your own. And then of course when you are done, return it to them.

Scan listings on ebay and Facebook Marketplace

The next scenario involves spending a little money. As of writing this, a quick search on ebay found used VHS players ranging anywhere from $40 to $100+. Quality will of course depend on the seller. Make sure to closely read any description to make sure it is indeed tested and working. If you want to consider from those among your community, you can also try searching for listings on Facebook Marketplace. Prices and options are more or less the same as ebay, but would allow you to buy from someone in town or nearby. There is of course a safety element to this, so be mindful when buying from strangers.

Consider Amazon refurbished

Amazon won’t by any means have the cheapest options, but it does have refurbished (sometimes called “renewed”) VHS players sold by tech dealers. A quick search found multiple options for VCR/DVD combos going for around $250.

Avoid the hassle completely

If reading any of this sounds risky or not worth the effort, one last option available is to send your tapes to a professional digitization company like legacybox.com and foreverstudios.com. While you will have to risk temporarily parting with your tapes, it is an option for those that would rather leave it to the professionals to handle and not have to worry about finding or buying equipment from marketplaces.

What is a VHS-C tape?

Some family home videos never made it to standard VHS and remain on the original camcorder tape they were recorded to. We’ll show you what you need to convert those.