Didgitizing and editing VHS video tapes on my imac

You would need an analog to digital video converter. There are a lot of them out there. I have never used any of them so not knowledgeable enough from personal experience to make a recommendation.

One converter that has been mentioned a few times on this forum is the Elgato. Check out this link:

https://www.amazon.com/Elgato-Video-Capture-Digitize-iPad/dp/B0029U2YSA

Whichever converter that you buy, read its specs to make sure that it works with your computer and operating system.

--Rich

As long as you have composite video, it should be able to handle it. If *I* was doing Hi-8, I would find a digital 8 camcorder that can play hi-8 and use DV via firewire.

IndyAnna1 wrote:

Want to input my Home movie videos VHS tapes into my imac and digitize and edit them. Any suggestions as to what product to get the vhs tapes into my iMac. I plan on just using iMovie

If you are running macos Ventura (or higher), I would suggest this:

https://www.diamondmm.com/product/diamond-vc500se-pc-and-mac-usb-2-0-one-touch-vhs-to-dvd-video-capture-device-with-easy-to-use-software-convert-edit-and-save-to-digital-files/

I had an older VC500 for Mac device, but the hardware is not recognized by Ventura. Diamond had put out an update (for "Big Sur and higher") but is still useless if running Ventura. I jfound out the hard way this morning (after not using it for a while) - I just ordered the same device linked above today.

I don't know whether the Elgato capture device mentioned above works under Ventura either - the system requirement specs for Mac say 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) or later. That's been around for quite some time, but Ventura's security may have changed some way how USB capture devices work with the OS.

The Diamond device - once recognized by the Mac - uses QuickTime Player ("New Movie Recording") to record from what the VCR is playing back. I'm not sure whether iMovie has the same recording capability built in, I've never messed around with it in that capacity.

Steve

I bought a DVD converter that wouldn't work with Ventura; sending it back. Now I'm looking at the Diamond recommended by Steve, but they have several iterations. I've "chatted" with the website, asking if the $40ish one works with Hi-8, as some of their models specify that they do... so do they models support Hi-8? Hmmm. Today is Saturday, so perhaps I'll hear back by Monday. Any further recommendations regarding Diamond? I have VHS tapes, I have Compact tapes, and I have Hi-8 tapes, all to be converted onto my Mac, with Ventura 13.2.1.

Thanks,

Jo An

You can also use a service like Legacy Box. Note that whatever you choose, the video quality will be pretty poor.

iMovie can certainly record from a FireWire DV stream, but I am not sure about one coming from USB.