Michael Boyle's Strengthcoach.com Blog

I have some great training stuff on VHS. Problem is it’s tough to find a VCR these days to watch them. My other problem is that I know these VHS tapes are eventually going to dry up and break. Some of my VHS tapes are over 20 years old.  I took a bunch of tapes to a service that advertises that they will convert them for a fee and was told that because the tapes were copywrited they could not copy them onto CD’s for me. Next I looked into buying a converter, basically a very expensive combination VHS-DVD that copied the tape on a DVD. This unit was about $350 dollars. However, an internet search led me to an invention that in my mind rivals the IPOD and the FlipCam, the Elgato Video Capture Cable. For seventy five dollars I received the cable and the software to hook up a a TV-VCR to my computer. The software then converts all these old VHS tapes to Quicktime movies on my computer. Last week I began converting training classics like Al Vermeil’s Success Through Training and Angel Spassov’s Bulgarian Methods of Explosive Power Development into Quicktime movies. If you have old training footage, training tapes, interviews or game films on VHS, buy one of these units and get to work.

Just a quick note, the Elgato unit is the one recommended for a MAC. The Roxio Easy VHS to DVD gets a better rating for PC although I didn’t use it.

PS- You can also convert your kids Disney stuff to computer files which might be my next project. Lion King forever on my computer?

This entry was posted on November 2, 2010 at 6:31 am and is filed under Media, Random Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.