Help With VHS Player?

Converting European VHS tape for American player. Help?

• I have a vhs tape that i brought from home but I don't have the right player to watch the tape. Other than converting it to american/japanese format, I'm trying to make a digital copy of it. Please help me with equipment names and sofwtare. Thanks!

• Answer:

  European video standard is 25 frames per second, while American is 30 frames. Also, the raster scan frequency (the number of scan lines from top to bottom in a frame) is 625 lines for European and 525 lines for American. And lastly, if you could get past all that, European color encoding is PAL while American is NTSC, which are completely different and not interchangeable. Since all video starts out as RGB, which is Red video, Green video, and Blue video, and already generated at the right frame rate and raster scan, and then encoded so that all 3 colors are on a single channel, the first thing you need is a converter to change your video back to its original RGB. Then the converter further needs to convert the different frames and lines, which has to add some frames compared to the original information, plus cut off some lines for the new standard. And lastly, it has to re-encode the RGB into the new color standard. Yes, there are devices to do that, but they're expensive (100's of dollars, at least) and they still look kinda flickery, and color might be a little off. AND you still need the European VHS player to run the tape. You'd be better off buying a replacement if it's a commercial tape. If you're already good with transferring video into a computer with capture gear and software, then there's a possibility. If not, it's like trying to explain how to repair a 747 to a 1st grader. But even then, you STILL need to have your European VHS player. If it's important enough to warrant the price, any medium size city has companies which do conversions of various world standards. At the same time, they can also do the transfer to another tape, DVD, or computer file, if that's what you specify. You might have to pay $40-$50 for it. But if it's a commercial tape, they probably will require printed proof of your right to copy it.