Converting a Star Wars VHS tape to digital format

There's certainly endless amounts of information about this online but I thought I'd share my own personal experience. 

'Click and convert' Hardware by CnM Lifestyle electronics with software by Arcsoft (2007)

 

Why bother? Well, if have a favourite film, television drama, family moments or anything else you want to preserve for future then it's a good idea. The more you play a VHS tape, the more it will wear out and it could even snap eventually. Always store your VHS tapes at room temperature otherwise you stand the risk of the tape going mouldy, which is very common. Mouldy tapes can be cleaned, so don't just throw it away, but it's not an easy process. I've heard of someone throw away a first edition Star Wars VHS tape away becuse of mould, something I would certainly not do for such a classic collectable. 

In the 2000's I was using a dektop computer. I had a collection of collectable UK issue pre-cert VHS tapes and wanted to convert them to a digital format. I bought a VHS to digital converter kit which included software by Arcsoft called Showbiz, around 2007. This worked really well, but I never got around to copying many of my VHS tapes because it took so long. Using a desktop computer for this was good because it had so many input jacks and a seperate sound card. 

Fast foward to 2025 and I decided to convert my set of first edition Star Wars trilogy VHS cassettes to a digital format. The Star Wars (A New Hope) VHS was the first time it was made available to watch at home. This was for rental only, so the condition is surprisingly good for a tape which is 42 years old and could have been watched hundreds of times. 

My original Star Wars 'rental only' VHS from 1982

That's when it started to get rather complicated. 

A while ago I discovered that my new HP Dragonfly laptop didn't have a sound card. The original Showbiz software came with cables including a standard USB A and an audio jack for the sound. Well, there was no audio input on my laptop so I found I couldn't get any audio, even with the USB. 

I hastily went online and purchased another similar 'kit' with software by 'Honsetech'. Well, the software has proved to be almost useless and I paid what I consider alot of money for something which is probably made in China for about $5.

I would NOT recommend this product

A few years ago I explored all sorts of other options including using my PowerDirector software and Open Broadcaster Software (OBS). I had mixed success using these. 

This time I tried a different approach which turned into bit of a project. I still had an old Dell Inspiron 640m laptop. This had two audio jack sockets, one for headphones and one for a microphone. I thought this would allow me to record the audio, which was missing when I tried recording with my newer laptop. 

Over the years my old Dell was used for experimenting by installing Windows 98 and later a version of Linux to play some old computer games. I noticed that the Dell still had the sticker underneath with the Windows licence key for Windows Vista. I decided to try and re-instal this with the intention of then installing my old Showbiz software, which should be compatible with Vista. 

Despite having the Windows product key for Vista, I didn't have any reinstall discs. Fortunately I was able to download a complete version of Vista service pack 2. 

This worked but I soon realised that I should 'activate' the Windows Vista licence to ensure I maintained all it's features. I had just 3 days to do this. 

Fortunately I found a good video on Youtube which was how to register a copy of Windows Vista in 2023. It was no longer possible to do this online, but it could be done by telephone. To my surprise, the paid for Microsoft telephone registation service was still open and I was able to follow voice activated commands to complete the activation successfully. 

Firstly I checked my Star Wars tape using an LG model V280 DVD/VHS combi video cassette recorder (VCR). This is a 6 head VCR made in 2007. I played the tape and was rather shocked to see how bad the quality was. However, after running the tape throught the VCR a few times, it seemed to improve and stabalise. The ares of jumping and scratches were not always in the same place, so I assume it was more to do with the VCR tracking than the condition of the tape itself. 

I was ready to start recording the video using Arcsoft Showbiz. The audio jack with the 'dongle' did indeed produce audio when used via the microphone input jack, as I was hoping. 

I hooked up to a spare Television but later realised you don't even need to play it through the TV. You can simply connect the cable between the VCR and computer. There's a preview panel in Showbiz which allows you to see the video being played. I couldn't seem to get the preview working with the Honestech software. 

Despite the  Arcsoft Showbiz software being 18 years old, it's still significantly better then the much newer Honestech software I purchased just a few years ago.  

Just when I thought everything was going fine, a pop-up message appeared saying "Copyrighted video detected. Recording not allowed" and it stopped recording. I tried several times again but this message always appeared once or twice during the recording. 

I read many forums, offering many suggestions on how to bypass the analogue protection system used on some VHS tapes aka Macrovision or Copyguard. None of these worked for me and I didn't want to spend any more money of gadgets which may, or may not work. 

Analog Protection System - Wikipedia

My solution

The only way I solved this was to record chunks of the film and then use my PowerDirector 15 editing software to paste it all back together again. This was quite alot of work involving editing at single frame level to join the parts together successfully. It was a long process, but it worked and I finally had the full VHS film version as it was in 1982, in a digital format.

I decided to keep one full version in it's original format and produce another one which I enhanced using Power Director 15 by applying various 'fixes' such as 'de-noise' and colour correction. 

I managed to edit out all the worst quality bits by re-recording them using my Showbiz software. Curiously, the various bits which had 'jumping' and 'snow' didn't always appear again in the same place. I was able to use Power Director 15 to remove the worst bits and and then add the newly recorded scenes. This was a slow process. It needs lots of patience and at least some basic knowledge of using video editing software.

It's worth noting that the initial recording came with a file size of about 5GB. I did manage to compress this to about 2GB using Handbrake software, with no noticable degregation of quality.  

I read that a 6 head VCR could bypass the Copyright protection. I did wonder whether it was the occassional interference which was triggering the Copyright protection. 

There's still a huge number of 'kits' for converting VHS to digital availble. Nearly all of these are over-priced, and may not even work. I would suggest spending time to research these, read reviews and ensure compatiability with your own computer. If like me, you just want to record some old VHS tapes to preserve them digitally and have the convenience of that, then some of the more basic recording methods would be sufficient. If you have some very important old family tapes to preserve then you should probably have them done professionally to get the best quality possible. Finding such a reputable company is imperritive. I'm sure some might not manage to do it much better than you could yourself. 

My enhanced version

Afterwards I decided to make another copy, with enhancements and fixes using my Power Director 15 video editing software. The result was actually quite good, as you can see from the following comparison screenshots.

Only a subtle difference on this screenshot from the opening credits. The black background appears darker on the right-hand side enhanced version.  

A more noticable improvement with this screenshot. In the original, the skin colour appears more red. The second one has a more natural skin tone. 

My third comparison highlights how the 'noise reduction' feature has reduced the amount of visible lines and 'grain'. 

Since this I've also recorded my Dawn of the Dead Intervision VHS from 1982. The quality being much better than with using Honestech a few years ago. Perhaps 18 years ago the VHS converters were better made than today, even the cheap ones.