I've wasted THOUSANDS of dollars... - Domesday Duplicator

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Mark is a VHS enthusiast, but what do you do when you want to archive your family history (or Mrs Doubtfire) in the high quality it was recorded in? Well, don't do what Mark did and buy a very expensive tape player and numerous recording doodads, and instead consider VHSdecode and the Domesday Duplicator.

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CHAPTERS
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0:00 Digitizing made simple (and much cheaper)
2:36 Sponsor - Sharge
3:07 Finding the installation point
4:15 Capturing footage and decoding it
5:38 Captured footage comparison, pricing, and alternatives
6:47 Outro

[TheRealHarrypm]

Harry here, so some key points that the video does not highlight...

- VHS -Decode, despite its name we support over a dozen flavors of analog tape formats, the more samples provided, the more we can support! (There is a format support list in the wiki and on the readme)

- The cost of the DdD is actually 300 USD or less (global), CX Cards about 30 USD each, clockgen mod 150 USD or less depending on tools, and the MISRC is aimed at 150-250 USD mark.

- This example VCR setup actually misses 2 current key config things, an capacitor to de-couple and an amplifier with impedance control/matching.

- There is TB's of test data online for anyone to go play with, linked on the wiki docs.

- Credit to Simmon Inns for the DdD and big credit to Øyvind (Oln) for starting and being the core dev of the tape decode branch.

- FM RF is from the tape, not from a TV pack, so the method is called "FM RF Archival". VHS and other consumer formats are called "Colour-Under" FM modulated formats hence why they decode to an S-Video style set of files with the decode workflow, and LaserDisc/SMPTE-C for example are composite modulated formats so produces a single file.

[NikHYTWP]

Shame this was done as a ShortCircuit, this tech definitely deserves a longer-format video.

[michaellow]

PLEASE make an LTT video going over setup and the process of archiving old VHS tapes with this! I have so many family videos I’ve been afraid to even touch that I’d love to digitize.

[simbiat]

I think this needs a proper video or otherwise this is is only for people who understand what's happening. At the least, I would not mind an explanation of why the end result is so much better, especially when that comparison was shown at 1:32. And I am not even into this niche.

[HankW]

Thanks for highlight this, always a fan of new open source digital preservation tech! I don't think LTT has highlighted the Greaseweazle project, but it allows you to dump floppy disks with a similar workflow of recording the magnetic flux and then converting that to a disk image. I couldn't be happier with mine, it's been a big help for saving my grandmother's PHD thesis word processing files from the 1980s!

[jitmancanth]

About 15 or 20 years ago, I bought a Panasonic DMR-EX99VEBK combo HDD/DVD/VCR unit for the sole purpose of transferring my VHS collection to DVD-R. About £500, plus what I spent on blank media, and a few hundred hours of my time, and I had backed up all of my home tapes, and 99% of my pre-recorded purchases which to that point I hadn't bought on DVD, (a couple of tapes had Macrovision.) And they all looked fantastic, as good as VHS could get. That's digitising the easy way, and with the added bonus that using the HDD as an intermediate step allowed me better control when it came to editing the content, removing commercials, splitting into chapters, naming content... Now ask me how often I watch those DVD-Rs...

Very rarely.

[elchibrax]

"Firewire" Now, that's a name I haven't heard in a long time....
Like e-sata or midi-port

[ruthcherry]

Very interesting! Especially as my dad, now in his 80s, had cine film converted to VHS, and later onto DVDs. These go all the way back to the 2nd World War era. Also, there are some interviews of my great grandfather that were made for the Imperial War museum (London) as he was a translator (English / French) during the Battle of the Somme, in WWI . He was "blown up", severely wounded, and extremely lucky to survive.... I would like to keep all of those family archives up to date. Thank you for showing how this can be achievable.

[djjudd]

Thank you so much for shedding light on this! I literally JUST collected all of my families old VHS tapes to digitize and was looking for solutions.

[marcgii]

Tech Tangents also did a video on this thing for those who want to learn more

[firefighterleetiktok]

I’d much rather see videos like this than a 20 min video of GPU graphs. I believe it has real world value to the PC enthusiast as not many people are able to upgrade their PC or graphics card.

I’m in the UK, employed as a firefighter and volunteer with the elderly yet every month I have zero money to do anything. I’d happily sell a kidney just to be able to upgrade my 10 year old pc and then maybe… just maybe come back and read those graphs

[kylebija]

I love this sort of video. I don't have a use-case for this, currently, but I love learning about it. Please make more videos like this in the future! The audience extends beyond the people who would actually do the mod themselves.

[martontichi]

I am so glad you're covering this. It's truly the best way to archive VHS

[mark_delight]

Mark, this was one of the coolest videos I have watched in a long time. I had no idea something like this existed, and it has serioiusly piqued my interest. Especially for the old family video tapes that I've digitized normally and kept, but to bring those over looking like that. That's pretty mind blowing. Thank you for this!

[kid.forever]

This is amazing! Would love to see more videos like this. ❤

[peanutismint]

This was a fantastic video. I’d love more of this kind of content on how to use/fix/save old tech. Also I know everyone and their mother on YouTube have made BBC Domesday retrospectives but I’d love to see LTT’s take on that fascinating project. My teacher dad brought home his school’s BBC Micro + Laserdisc system with the Domesday discs when I was like 6 years old and I was blown away.

[Maison]

PLEASE DO MORE OF THESE TYPE OF VIDEOS!!!! I don't own alot of tape apart from what my parents gave to me but I find this whole world fascinating, would love in-depth videos on how it works and how this niche evolves over time!!

[rjc]

this should have been a full video... accually useful tech

[NetizenKing]

I've been following the VHS Decode project for many years and I'm really impressed with the progress that the community devs have made on this! Amazing work!

[RogerBergqvist]

And i am about 37 years back in time. SVHS and Glorious marvelous things.