Large tape project, what VCRs to use?

[VideoGeek25]

I've been taking classes online, and will graduate in October. All my lectures are online, and I am unable to download them, and will lose access 6 months after I graduate. As such, I want to be able to archive all of the lectures, plus other videos. All together, there are 611 videos.

I would like to backup the lectures onto various media formats: digital/VHS/DVD.

I'll mostly be using the VHS copies because if I need to replay a certain section of a video, I find the jog dial of a VCR much easier than skipping around on a digital file or a DVD.

Here are the machines I've thought of:

JVC:
HR S6600U
HR S6700U
HR S4900U/6900U/5100U/7100U
HR S7300U
HR S9500U
HR S9600U/HR S7600U
HR S7900U
HR S9911U
BR S378U
HR DVS2U
SR MV40U
SR V10U
SR V101US

Panasonic:
AG 1970
AG 1980

Ideally I want a VCR that has a rugged transport that won't wear out after 600-700 tapes. I would prefer to use the same machine for playback as well.

I would prefer the machine to have a jog dial, and would like if the machine had "SVHS ET"

I see that Southern Advantage Company still has some brand new machines for sale, so I'm open to that as well.

[latreche34]

Get a 2TB HDD for $50 and backup all your videos, if unable to download use screen capture.

700 VHS tapes would cost you around $1000 in blank tapes (assuming $1.50 used tapes) unless you have a free supply of it. it will cost you 1400 of recording time and most likely two VCRs, good VCRs are around $250 with unknown working condition, good working condition $500-$1000. a lot of money and a lot hardware wear and a lot of time. There are reasons why technology evolves, one of them being these circumstances.

[Hushpower]

I'll second Latreche here. You're taking a big risk, hoping that your VCRs will keep on trucking in the years to come.

I'd persevere with practising using a software player to watch your lectures; in VLC player, for example, you can drag the play marker along and almost instantly find the section of interest. With a VCR, you'll spend minutes and minutes FF and REW to find the spot you want. You'll also have to have a indexing system to be able to find a particular tape (and what's on it).And with VLC Player you can set bookmarks at any point in the video so you can go to that point later, instantly. There are probably much more capable bookmarking programs around that will make your life so much easier than using tapes.

Another advantage of having a digital workflow is that you can save/catalogue your lectures (or parts thereof) individually. You don't have to have two or three lectures on one tape, or worry about overunning a tape because a lecture was too long. You can organise a file naming system so all your lectures can be easily categorised and found.

Ditch the tapes, go digital!

[lingyi]

++1 to going digital. Jogging back and forth is stressful for the machine and the tape.

There are USB jog shuttles that you can use.

[lingyi]

++1 to going digital. Jogging back and forth is stressful for the machine and the tape.

There are USB jog shuttles that you can use.

[latreche34]

Not to mention the quality, If the lectures have fine details materials such as graphics, numbers, diagrams, artistic pictures, If recorded to VHS you wouldn't have enough resolution to save those details, They will be lost forever and you will never be able to recover them. In digital, even with screen capture you can still get the full source resolution and compression quality.

[VideoGeek25]

The usb jog dial is very interesting. Will that work on any video file?

I like the hdd idea as a backup, but I've had issues with hdds failing in the past.

I attempted screen capture the other night, had all set to record the max amount of hours, yet it stopped right after 1 hour.

As for VCRs, I own virtually every JVC SVHS mech series from the HR S7000U to the final DVHS HM DT100. I also own an AG 1970 and an AG 1980.

I agree that VHS will result in some quality loss, but I feel that it's good to have several forms of backup. I'm willing to put in the hours so I have copies on hdd, vhs/svhs, and dvd.

While I've had issues with hdds failing and DVDs rotting or scratched or cracked, I've never really had any issue with VHS/SVHS tapes.