Comments | margotmetroland: A couple of questions about old media

margotmetroland

A couple of questions about old media

Apr 12, 2009 12:46

Does anyone still watch VHS tapes these days? I've just found a small pile that I'd forgotten I had and don't know what to do with. 11 x Simpsons tapes and 2 x exercise tapes.

Does anyone have the know-how/technology to convert audio tape into MP3? In the same box I found all my old classical music tapes and it would be nice to have them on the

Comments 19

foxy76 April 12 2009, 12:24:03 UTC

I still watch VHS tapes!

You could try donating them to a charity shop, they're normally pretty grateful for donations.

darth_tigger April 12 2009, 12:27:16 UTC

I still watch VHS tapes!

You don't want almost complete collections of Babylon 5 and The Prisoner do you? Or miscellaneous British sitcoms and dramas? Various films? Some comedy? I have a pile of videos to get rid of and I'm loath to chuck them!

margotmetroland April 12 2009, 14:59:26 UTC

I managed to give away a load of videos when we moved a couple of years ago, but I'm not sure I'll convince anyone to rehome the pile of Simpsons tapes.

If you've got anything really obscure I'll ask moral_vacuum if it's something he'd want, but it would have to be fairly obscure for him not to have it.

moral_vacuum April 12 2009, 18:16:32 UTC

I don't have The Prisoner, for a start. But I already have B5.

Thread 6

silenttex April 12 2009, 12:39:56 UTC

I have the technology to convert audio tapes to mp3. How many tapes are we talking about?

margotmetroland April 12 2009, 15:02:24 UTC

Ooh!

It's about 20 tapes in total, but I haven't been through them in ages, so it could be fewer. With what do we bribe you to perform this kind function??

silenttex April 13 2009, 22:12:13 UTC

I can lend you the kit to do it for yourself, a mysterious white box and assorted cables (one of which (depending on the connections you have on the stereo) goes from stereo to white box, and a usb cable from white box to PC.) and the software CD which I'll need to find.
It's probably best if you do it, as you know the music. If you don't stop the recording, it will record all the tracks as one. The software can attempt to scan the track for quiet spots and split the tracks, but I've found it gets lots of false positives. (It's not a major problem, you can use Audacity to join tracks together and then convert them to MP3.)

incy April 12 2009, 14:28:12 UTC

I still have a vhs player though cannot say when I last used it (we are talking more then a year ago).

I can convert tape to mp3, but if you get audacity ( http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ ) and download it (its free) and have the relevant cable to connect a tape player to your pc microphone/line in socket then it is dead easy to rip them yourselves.

margotmetroland April 12 2009, 15:00:54 UTC

Y'see, it all fell apart when you said "relevant cable"

The only tape player I have now is included in my little micro hifi thingy. It doesn't have a cd-record facility or I'd have done that ages ago, and I'm not sure if my little hifi would be good enough.

Technology!

incy April 12 2009, 15:13:06 UTC

does it have a headphone socket? and does your pc have a standard microphone in socket (this is almost certainly a yes) in which case you need a 3.5 jack to a 3.5 jack cable to hook the two up (almost certainly you have one, they seem to come with both of electronic kit that have any audio function). If you do not I am sure I can get one to you pretty quickly.

moral_vacuum April 12 2009, 18:17:26 UTC

I've got several headphone to phono cables knocking about too.

Thread 7

daveon April 12 2009, 20:19:44 UTC

We converted some records a while ago, but sadly the whole process was a royal pain in the arse as we ended up with a collection of "blocks" of music which took forever to get into the computer and then forever cubed to do something with :(

Videos were easier, just time consuming, but I'm glad I uploaded all our old tapes.

margotmetroland April 13 2009, 14:11:58 UTC

Hmm, that doesn't sound good. I know that the tape content will just come out as chunks, rather than individual tracks, but that's fine. However if it's going to take forever to do, it's very unlikely my patience will last that long.

ccomley April 12 2009, 22:31:04 UTC

IMHO by far the easiest way to RIP vinyl and tape originals is, presming they're commercial not home-grown, to do an illicit download of the same item then SAY you ripped your own legit paid for copy.

Mind you, ripping your own legit copy is AIUI as illegal as nicking someone else's - but it shouln't be.