• Thanks for visiting the Kaleidescape Owners' Forum

    This forum is for the community of Kaleidescape owners, and others interested in learning about the system, equipment, services, and the company itself.

    It is run by a group of enthusiastic Kaleidescape owners and dealers purely as a service to this community.

    This board is not affiliated in any way with Kaleidescape, Inc.
    For official technical support, product information, or customer service, please visit www.kaleidescape.com

  • You are currently in "Guest" mode and not logged in with a registered account.

    The forum is free to use and most of the forum can be used by guests who are not registered....

    ... but we strongly encourage you to register for a full account. There is no cost to register for a full account.

    Benefits of registering for a full account:

    • Participate in the discussions! You must have a registered account to make posts on the forums. You will be able to start your own thread on a topic or question, or you can reply to other threads/discussions.
    • Use the "Conversation" feature (known as "private messaging" on other forums) to communicate directly with any of the other users here.
    • Access the Files area. The "resources" area of the forum contains many "Favorite Scene" and Script files that can dramatically increase the enjoyment of your Kaleidescape system. Go directly to great scenes in your favorite movies, created by other owners, and add automation to playback of your system with Scripts.
    • You won't see this annoying notice at the top of every screen!😊

    It's easy and free to register for the forum. Just click the "Register" button in the upper right corner of this page, and follow the instructions there.

Old VHS Tapes & Cassettes

J

Joe

Well-known member
I'm doing a lot of end-of-year house cleaning this week and during that process, I've run into a lot of old VHS tapes and cassettes. This is content purchased a long time ago, but I would like to bring them kicking and screaming into the 21st century via the Kaleidescape. I am thinking of using a service to convert the content to DVDs and CDs and then import them into the Kaleidescape. Does Kaleidescape (the company) offer any import support for such materials as they do for commercial DVDs and CDs? It would be great to get some help with cover art, chapter markings, etc so that the imports are indexed, searchable and are more than just one big blob of video or audio.

Also, if anyone has been through a similar effort, I'd appreciate any "heads up" you can provide for any potential gotchas.
 
Sorry, but the first thing popping into my head might come across as rude, which is not intended but I just gotta say it:

The cost to convert a VHS tape, plus the shipping the discs to and back from Kaleidescape and the labor to bookmark each individual disc custom just for you so you don't have to buy the media in a new and vastly superior format with higher resolution and audio in the day and age of the $7 DVD? Are we pinching too many pennies with such an expensive system?

Man up, bro! Pick out the titles you really want on your system, go to Amazon and just order them. You will have them done faster and in better quality for less money. Don't spend a buck to save a nickel.
 
Sorry, I should have been more clear. These are tapes and cassettes that never made it over to DVD. Sermons, lectures, product-specific videos on things like sewing, etc. Not fresh content, but stuff that meant a lot to our family a while ago but was "lost" because it's trapped on old media. So, to me, it's extremely cool to be able to breathe life back into that stuff by getting it onto the Kaleidescape.

Let's face it, I've picked up perfectly good DVDs for $4, so no, I wouldn't be foolish enough to go through the time/effort/expense to convert content that's already available on DVD. I mean... c'mon, dude ;)
 
You could convert it yourself- there are solutions for this for the PC and the Mac and then when it imports to K and is not recognized then you can manually put in the info. I do that for home movies. I doubt K would be willing to do it for you but you never know. As far as digitizing old tapes to DVD there are services that do that and I bet there are services local to you.
 
Yeah, I certainly can see it for content that is not commercially available, but then you are in the "home movie" category which isn't such a bad deal. Can you author a disc to start without a menu? I haven't tried that so I don't know. If so, then you wouldn't even need to have them bookmarked.
 
JerryL said:
You could convert it yourself- there are solutions for this for the PC and the Mac and then when it imports to K and is not recognized then you can manually put in the info. I do that for home movies. I doubt K would be willing to do it for you but you never know. As far as digitizing old tapes to DVD there are services that do that and I bet there are services local to you.
Click to expand...

What is the best solution for getting VHS tapes digitized onto a Mac (which I would subsequently burned to DVD through iDvd)?
 
A few years ago I needed a VHS tape transferred to DVD. I found a local Wedding/Photography business that provided a transfer service for VHS wedding tapes to DVD. They did a good job and the cost was not much more than a new DVD.
 
Mr.Poindexter said:
Yeah, I certainly can see it for content that is not commercially available, but then you are in the "home movie" category which isn't such a bad deal. Can you author a disc to start without a menu? I haven't tried that so I don't know. If so, then you wouldn't even need to have them bookmarked.
Click to expand...

If you mean a movie menu (like on a DVD or BR disc), then yes, i do it all the time with home movies I shoot. The footage just starts up and i can advance to chapter markings i insert into the video using Sony Vegas (or any other NLE software). So, you're right, I'll just consider them as home movies, get them converted to DVDs/CDs and do what I'm already doing for the home movies I shoot. Thanks.
 
Heres one Id have confidence in- I have a really old product that connects via firewire and has composite, Svideo and r&L inputs. I forget the name.

http://www.roxio.com/enu/products/e...mac&AID=10373745&PID=4165004&SID=ptuut99jbjon

Roxio has Svideo inputs too- with VHS you are far better off using the Svideo because VHS stores the luma and color info separate. Roxio is a trusted company with me because Ive been using their Toast product for a long time- probably about a decade.
 
Sorry to sound like a shill for the company but I got an email from them- they have a 48 hours sale with 40% off heres the code:

ROXIO40OFF
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top