Portta VHS to Digital Converter, Video to Digital Recorder with Remote, Compatible with VHS, VCR, DVR, DVD, Hi8, Mini DV Players, Camcorder, Gaming Consoles (VHS/Tapes/DVD Player Not Included)

I always wanted to find a way to transfer my old VHS home movies to digital but hated the thought of sending them somewhere. I took a chance on this and THANK YOU! I also ordered a bunch of flash drives because I had read that it may not record to an external hard drive that doesn't have its own power source. I had bought a VHS player at goodwill for $20 but I wanted to check it with an old VHS tape so I bought one of those also for 50 cents, I hooked to the converter box and put in the movie I had bought and it played fine so I popped in a home movie from 1992! WOW I got to see my grandparents, parents and my brother who had all passed away, hearing their voices all most made me cry. One of the home movies I had taken, I had walked around the inside of my grandmas house, what great memories.I posted 6 movies to you tube and texted my cousins, they loved it and we are still texting each other about how much fun we had back in the day. I also found a VHS where I had recorded my fathers old slides, I got to see me when I was around 4, so 57 years ago. This was one of the best things I have ever purchased. Thank you again.* I did order an S-video cable today, just to see if the output from my VCR to the converter is any better, not a big deal but if it improves the video at all its worth the $10*OH before you start recording, read the instructions on removing the time stamp that will appear in the bottom right had corner of your video, its in the settings menu, you can see it on my picture I uploaded*Update, the S Video cable arrived but the VCR output for S Video is only for the DVD player part of it, oh well, they still look great!

Sweet!! After 20 years I’m finally able to put all of my old 8mm and hi8 videos on thumb drives and make digital copies for storage. This thing works like a charm. I read several unhappy reviews and so I did a little reading on Google before I purchased this device. Google recommended 3.0 or 3.1 name brand thumb drives for best results. So when I ordered this little gem I ordered a dozen San disc 3.0 16 gig thumb drives for a start and to see how everything was going to work. According to google you can fit roughly two hours of 8mm footage on about 2 to 4 gigs of space give or take a little. So I figured 3 or 4 two hour tapes per thumb drive. Then my hi8 tapes are going to require about 28 gigs for a two hour video so I’ll buy the 32 gigabyte thumb drives when I get started on those tapes. According to Google, the key is the high speed name brand thumb drives for best results. And it works perfectly as long as your camera still plays the tapes or you have some other way of playing the tapes on a device that connects to this little gem. I couldn’t be happier. I transferred a video of my grandpa telling me his story of how him and my grandma got married and the things that happened around that time. The video was made in 1992. The video was an hour and 13 minutes. An hour and 15 minutes after I started using this little device I was watching it on my 85” tv via the thumb drive and usb port. And I’m tech illiterate. So if I can get this gem to work, ANYONE can with a little reading and research and just simply following directions. It takes time. I have around 100 + hours of video and you have to sorta monitor this thing. Unless you just do one video per thumb drive. But I’m going to try to be a little more thrifty and squeeze as much as I can into each thumb drive. May later I’ll go back and do some editing. But that’s a review on its own. Getting all of this history stored on a device that can be viewed and preserved was the goal. Mission starting to be accomplished.

4/5 Stars!KEY TAKE: This product works as intended and retains both visual and audio quality from the video itself. I was a well-documented child growing up, and my family kept all of the old VHS-C tapes at home. I used this to convert those old tapes into digital files and it's all very easy to use.Remember, this is just a recorder. Which means if you're in my shoes, you'll need to rewind the tapes, and play to record from start to finish.----NOTES----- CORDS: When you receive the package, the converter comes with several cords outside of the charger/power cord (AUX cord, AV cords). It may be a bit confusing. You don't need to use the other cords, unless your equipment calls for it. But if you're like me, I used a Panasonic camcorder to play my tapes and hooked that up to the converter. I already had an AV cable for the camera, so I plugged the other end into the converter and it worked. Yes, the audio was also included. Very simple. I ended up not using the other cords, aside from the one to power the converter.- STORAGE: Make sure you have something to save the files onto. I have a lot of USB drives and saved my recordings onto that by hooking that into the converter. Pick a drive that fits your needs. If you have A LOT, like me, get something like 128GB. Each tape I have is at least an hour to an hour half long. So each recorded file came out to around 2.5GB to 3GB. Use that as a measure, if it helps.- RECORDING: I didn't need to touch most of the settings in my case, but you know you've stopped recording when it says 'SAVING' when you stop. It does not stop automatically.- CORRUPTED FILE: I was recording a tape, and also had the recorder hooked up to my TV so I could watch on a bigger screen while recording. At one point, right as it finished and before I hit the stop button, I pulled out the HDMI to move elsewhere. This made my converter freeze up, which messed with my recording. The file exists, but it cannot be opened, so safe to say the file was corrupted. Don't pull cords out when you're recording and leave it untouched!Glitch file corruption aside (a bit of a user error), the build is plastic but decently made. Good overall, hence a 4/5.