The Plexgear video capture dongle connects to your computer through one of its USB ports. The bundled video capture software Empia (for macOS) is somewhat buggy and not that well designed, bit it is simple and does what it has to. It works for both macOS and Windows and cost me about $50 (400 sek). I used Plexgear Moviesaver 600 from the Swedish company Kjell & Company.

The dongles are always bundled with some video capture software (right?) for recording the video feed and saving it as a video file. What they do is that they transfer the analog signal from the VHS player to a digital one that your computer can process. There are lots of different video capture dongles available today. A VHS-C adapter with its lid open and one of my parents’ old VHS-C cassettes. You can buy these adapters on websites like Amazon. You insert it in your VHS player and play it like a regular cassette. They need a VHS-C adapter to be played on a VHS player.Ī VHS-C adapter is basically a battery-driven hollow VHS cassette in which you insert a smaller VHS-C cassette. These types of cassettes were introduced in 1982 and were primarily used in consumer-grade camcorders. If not, perhaps you know someone you can borrow one from.Ĭhances are your old VHS cassettes are of the smaller VHS-C format. VHS players are easily found on websites like Ebay, unless you already have one laying around. This is the equipment I used (excluding my Macbook): Clockwise from the top: VHS player, some of the VHS-C cassettes, VHS-C cassette adapter (with another VHS-C cassette beneath), video capture dongle from Plexgear and a SCART to RCA cable. Luckily, my parents had already done a lot of the hard work by having not one but two VHS players in great shape (one broke down and we had to repair it for $72, but that’s another story).

Transferring VHS tapes to a computer requires getting some equipment. I took me seven years, but last year I decided to finally transfer these tapes to digital form as a Christmas gift to my parents. When we watched some of them, I realized that these tapes needed to be transfered to digital form before they deteriorated further. When I came home for Christmas eight years ago in 2010, my parents had organized all of their old VHS tapes from when I was a kid.

This is my guide on how to transfer your VHS tapes to your Mac, so you can store them for the future. Memories fade over time and some are easily lost forever, especially if they’re stored on old VHS tapes.

Copy dvd to usb mac