Digitise records and video

Preserve your old LPs and VHS tapes with our guide to digital conversion

The digital era has brought with it new ways to store music and video, many of which have the ability to offer better quality than the older, analogue alternatives. And that’s all well and good, but what if you already have a large collection of records, tapes and video cassettes?

As these formats slowly slip into obscurity, and as the equipment needed to play them becomes unavailable, they could be hard to enjoy. Without taking action, we could find ourselves forced to buy new copies of music and video that we already own.

The solution to this could lie on your desktop. With a computer, the right software and a little know how, it’s possible to make digital copies of old music and video formats and transfer them to CDs and DVDs, or even turn them into digital media files for a portable player. In this way you can preserve your original investment with relatively little expense and bring all those old video and audio recordings bang up to date. And in this issue, we’ll show you exactly how.

Record breakers
Converting music and video from one format to another isn’t a particularly new idea. Many of us have recorded a vinyl LP to a tape that can be played in the car. The principle of using your PC to make digital copies is exactly the same, though the actual process of doing so may be quite different. The advantages of converting to digital are similar, too: you’ll be able to play your old records, tapes and videos in CD and DVD players, for example, or transfer them to a portable player to enjoy on the move.

We’ll get to transferring video tapes a little later on, but let’s deal with those records and tapes first. Converting music is effectively a two-stage task. First the music needs to be recorded to the computer’s hard disk, using a cable to connect the record or tape player to the PC’s sound input. Second it’s necessary to split the recording into its component tracks and convert them into either a music CD or a portable music file format, such as MP3. You’ll find a step-by-step guide on how to do this here.

What do you need?
Assuming there’s still a record player or tape deck lurking somewhere around the house, most people will already have all they need to make digital copies of their LPs and cassettes. Almost every PC has an audio input socket on it. It will usually take the form of a 3.5mm minijack socket somewhere near the output socket that connects to your computer’s speakers and is often coloured pale blue (rather than pink or green) and marked line-in.

In many cases, creating the initial connection between a PC and a record or tape player requires no further hardware, other than perhaps a cable with a minijack plug on one end and two phono plugs on the other to connect the player to your computer (these cost £4.49 from Maplin).

At the other end of the process, most people will have all the equipment necessary for creating a finished CD. Most computers now come with a recordable CD/DVD drive and software suitable for recording and editing audio as well as burning it to CD or making MP3 files. If not, then adding a CD/DVD writer to your computer won’t cost much (a drive that connects via USB will cost about £40) and most include software, such as Nero or Roxio Easy Media Creator, with audio recording and editing capabilities.

Alternatively, free software, such as Audacity, can be used to record and split the tracks, while Windows Media Player or iTunes will burn the finished songs to disc.

Get connected
In some instances it may be necessary to invest in further accessories. Depending on the type of turntable you have, it may not be possible to make a direct connection from the record player to the PC.

Older turntables output a lower sound level than most modern hi-fi equipment ­ this is usually easy to spot as they must be connected to a special “phono” input on a hi-fi amplifier. If you have one of these, you’ll need to amplify the sound slightly before it reaches the computer ­ there are a number of ways to do this.

If you have an amplifier with outputs as well as inputs, you may be able to use this as a go-between. Connect the record player to the amplifier and the amplifier to the PC, making sure that the correct output is selected on the amp. Alternatively, you could buy a dedicated pre-amplifier.

Terratec’s Phono Preamp iVinyl (£85 from Amazon) has a phono input and a USB output, along with all the software necessary to digitise your records. A simple pre-amp that sits between the turntable and computer will cost less than £20.

If your turntable is part of a music system, this may have either an output connection or a headphone socket. When using the latter, look for a headphone level or volume adjustment control: this will need to be regulated during recording for best results. The same goes for tape players. Many standalone cassette decks or personal tape players will not have dedicated line-out connections, so the headphone socket must be used instead. Again, pay close attention to the volume level if using a headphone connection ­ too loud and your recordings will distort; too quiet and your recordings may not play at the same level as your other digital music files.

Those with large record collections to convert but no turntable to hand may want to consider a product such as Ion’s iTT USB Turntable (from £80 at Firebox). This is a turntable that connects directly to your PC via a USB cable. It plays 33 and 45 RPM records and comes with its own software that takes care of the whole business of converting records with a few clicks. A similar USB cassette deck, the Tape2PC (£100 from www.firebox.com), is also available.

Making movies
Unfortunately, those wishing to convert VHS or camcorder video tapes to DVD have it less easy. Once again, a connection needs to be made from the video player to the computer, so start by checking to see if your PC has the right kind of video input.

There are two places to look for a video input socket and two types of socket to look for. Both graphics cards and TV tuner cards sometimes have a video input, and this will usually take the shape of a composite video or S-video socket.

On graphics cards, a video socket of either variety may sometimes be found next to the connection for your computer’s monitor lead. Usually, however, any video sockets here can only send video out from the PC, rather than accepting signals sent in. If there’s a picture of a box with an arrow pointing out of it, the socket is an output and cannot be used for copying tapes. On TV tuner cards, look next to the aerial input.

Bear in mind that the inputs on a TV tuner or graphics card carry video signals only; you’ll need to connect your video player’s audio output to your PC separately in order to record the accompanying sound. The technique for this is similar to connecting a turntable ­ you’ll need to connect a lead between the VHS player and the computer’s line in socket, using an adapter cable if necessary.

Capture factor
If you can’t find a video input on your computer, don’t panic. You will need to buy a special video capture device but these are plentiful, simple to use and cheap. Just £45 will get you something like Terratec’s Grabster AV150MX.

The Grabster is an external video converter device that sits between the video player and the PC. Simply plug the video player’s video and audio cables in one end, then connect it to your computer via USB. This simplifies proceedings enormously, since both video and sound are digitised before they even reach your PC.

The Grabster isn’t the only device of its type, either. Pinnacle Systems produce something called the Dazzle DVD Recorder (£40 from Pinnaclesys), while Kworld produces a similar product, the DVD Maker USB 2.0, which sells for about £30 at Amazon.

All three devices come with the necessary connections, as well as software for capturing video and creating a DVD.

Burning questions
When converting videos, there are a few more things to consider. Video footage can take up vast chunks of storage space, so a hard disk with plenty of free space is needed. To create DVDs of the video you capture, it will also be necessary to have a recordable DVD drive. As we mentioned, any PC bought in the last few years should already have a suitable DVD writer fitted. The final consideration here is which type of recordable DVD disc to use. Write-once DVD-R discs are the best bet, since they’re compatible with most standalone DVD players.

We have explained the process of capturing and converting video using the Terratec Grabster on page 16, but the process will be similar whatever capture method or hardware you use.

It’s a relatively straightforward procedure but can be quite time consuming, because each tape will need to be played through while it records, then converted, then saved to DVD. Any editing you need to perform (such as cutting out adverts), will add to the time taken.

The legal angle
It’s important to remember the legal implications of copying LPs and VHS tapes. It is still technically against UK law to make copies of |copyright-protected materials, even if the copies are for your own personal use.

It’s unlikely, though, that anyone would get into trouble for making a digital copy of their own record or tape collection for personal use. However, it’s worth noting that some shop-bought VHS tapes have a built-in copy protection system known as Macrovision. This interferes with the copying process, and will effectively prevent you from converting the tapes to DVD. VHS tapes you have recorded yourself, however, will not suffer from this problem.

Transfer complete
Whether you’re converting from record and tape to CD and MP3 or video to DVD, the benefits are clear. Digitising will breathe new life into your existing music and video collections and will also preserve them for posterity.

On top of that, it may be possible to archive or even dispose of the originals ­ and your old hi-fi and video player ­ to free up space at home.

Your new digital music and video copies will be more versatile too. You’ll be able to copy them to a portable music player as well as enjoy them on more traditional CD and DVD players. The best news is that, thanks to your PC, making the conversion can be both cheap and easy.

Converting photos
With the correct equipment it’s possible to digitise photo prints, capturing them on your PC in a similar way to old videos and LPs.

Old pictures are prone to fading and often negatives are missing or damaged, so digitising them is a great way to preserve your precious memories. On top of that, digitised still photos can be added to documents - such as a family tree - or included in a DVD slideshow.

All you need is a decent scanner, such as HP’s Scanjet G4050, which can capture images from film and slides as well as prints.

With good image-editing software, such as Photoshop Elements, you can even restore or colour correct damaged or faded photos. For a further explanation of how to scan and convert old photos, see our full feature.

Common video connections
Few computers these days come with a video input socket suitable for recording from VHS cassettes but it’s always worth looking before purchasing new equipment.

There are two common types of video connection: composite video and S-video.

Composite video connectors are usually coloured yellow. They are often found alongside stereo audio connectors, coloured red and white, which are needed to carry the sound. Inexpensive adapters make it possible to convert from a VHS player’s Scart output to composite video and stereo sound cables.

S-video connectors use an oddly shaped plug with several pins to provide a higher-quality video connection. As with composite video connectors, S-video does not carry sound, so extra audio cables are needed.

Converting files
There are many types of computer file, and not all will work with the same programs. Sometimes the document, photo, music or movie files that you have on your PC may need to be converted from one format to another in order to open, view or edit them.

A good example is the process of converting a CD to digital files. Users of iPods and similar portable music players need to use separate software (usually either iTunes or Windows Media Player) to convert the digital audio on the CD into a file that the music player can understand.

There are converters available for all kinds of tasks, many of which are free. You can convert Word and Excel documents to a PDF file using free software such as doPDF. XnView 1.93 allows you to view about 400 types of image file and convert about 50 into other formats that you can use.