videotapes are used for storing video and audio for future playback and broadcasting. The golden time for video cassette is the middle to the end of the last century. Video tapes save media contents in the form of either an analog signal or digital signal. It is usually used in video tape recorders (VTRs), videocassette recorders (VCRs) or camcorders. With the emergence of high-quality random-access video recording media like hard disks and flash memory, videotapes are also deemed as an important tool for storing scientific or medical data. Generally, videotapes are able to support these formats as listed subsequently: VHS, Super VHS, VHS-C, 8mm, Hi-8, Digital8, MiniDV and etc. As the time passes, nowadays if you still have some video tapes in your home, it's best to convert them to DVDs. So how to convert video tapes to DVDs? That's what we are going to talk about today.

Part 1: Why you need to convert your video tapes to DVD

If you are still wondering whether you should convert your video tapes to DVDs, let me tell you, you definitely should. There is no reason not to.

When you want to enjoy family videos stored in the videotape to refresh your memory, you need to get a video recorder. However, since videocassette recorders are out of the fashion, they can't be easily, if not possible, attained in retail stores. And an archaic videotape recorder could cost you a large sum of money. What's worse, even if you do get a video recorder, those videotapes that you have treasured for a long time could fail to be played if they experienced any slightest scratch or other damages.

As you can see, it takes arduous task to keep videotapes intact for a long time. Moreover, the large-sized video recorder makes it impossible for you to play videotapes as wanted, since you can't take a heavy machine with you wherever you go. Unless you want to treasure such videocassette recorder as an antique, you are suggested to convert videotapes that you treasure so much to the prevalent DVD, so that you can enjoy these media files without any restrictions, as long as you have a computer at hand.

So till now, you should have a conclusion. Comparing to video tapes, DVDs are light weighted, so they are easier to be carried around and easier to keep. When you want to play the DVD, you only need to insert the disc to a DVD or Blu-ray Player, it's way easier to play a DVD than a video tape. There is no reason not to convert your video tapes to DVDs.

So, here comes the question. How to convert video tapes to DVD? What do you need in order to convert video tape to DVD? I will answer that right now.

Part 2: Preparations for converting your video tapes to DVD

Before officially start converting your video tapes to DVD, you should firstly take a look at the things you need to prepare. These things are not hard to get, and you should be able to get them all prepared within a day.

As you will see in the following guide, there are two solutions for you to transfer video tape to computer. For your information, transferring video tapes to computer is the complicated part in the whole process, after you have done this part, the following would be easy. So, in order to do the part of transferring video tapes to computer, what you need is your original tape, a VCR which is compatible with your tape and a digital camera. These are needed when you want to apply the first solution. If you want to apply the second solution, you will need a digital converter to convert your video tapes to digital. The solutions will be specified in the following.

Part 3: How to convert video tapes to DVD

Now let's see how to convert video tapes to DVD. There are two parts in the whole process, the first one is to transfer the content in your video tapes to your computer, and the second part is to burn it to DVD. Here are the detailed steps for both of the parts.

Transfer Video Tape to Computer

To extract videos from video tape to computer, you have more than one way to go. Here, you are offered with two solutions:

Solution 1. Use a digital camera to extract video tape.

- Link VCR to the digital camera, play the VHS video tape and then record it on the digital camera.

- Once the recording process is done, the VHS videotape will be stored on your digital camera. Then connect the camera to the computer.

- Transfer videotape to computer from the digital video camera.

Solution 2. Use a digital converter to extract video tape

- Get a digital converter in which you put VHS videotape in one side and a blank DVD in the other. When the movie plays, DVD will be created.

- Then insert the DVD into your computer and navigate to the exact videotapes. Then specify a file folder on the computer and copy them from the DVD.

Transfer Videotapes to DVD

After extracting VHS videotapes to the computer, you can now use this Leawo DVD Creator to convert videotapes to DVD in a jiffy. This professional tape to DVD converter allows you to complete videotape to DVD conversion within a few simple steps. What's more, this all-in-one tool can do much for you. It actually supports more than 180 kinds of formats like AVI, MP4, DAT, WEBM, RMVB, RM, MPG, MPEG, VOB, MOV and etc. So you are indeed free to convert almost any videotape format to DVD or Blu-ray without any hassle. Worry that you may get confused over the complex user interface? No need at all! This powerful program features an easy user interface, making it as easy as ABC to convert videotape to DVD. So why not get the trial version of this software and try it out by yourself?

dvd-creator

DVD Creator 

☉ Convert videos like MP4, AVI, MKV to DVD format fast.

☉ Create DVD-5, DVD-9 disc, folder or ISO image without quality loss.

☉ 1-click operation to create photo slideshows and burn to DVD.

☉ Easily editable effects, 2D to 3D conversion support.

☉ Built-in menu templates and edit disc menu with personal preferences.

Step 1. Open the installed software on the computer and choose the DVD Creator tab to enter the next interface. (Note: You can also hit the Burn button on the top panel to continue the process. The two buttons take you to the same page)

Leawo DVD Creator is a professional DVD burning program that can easily burn all kinds of videos to a DVD disc. The advanced burning technology within the software can allow you burn your video in a highest speed and preserve the original quality at the same time. The program is easy to use, and can deliver a stable performance when burning any video to a DVD disc or ISO files or folder. To burn a DVD disc in a high speed, all you need to do is to follow the instructions below.

Step 1: Download and launch Leawo DVD Creator

Step 2: Import your source video by clicking the "Add Video" button. You can import a single video, ISO file or a folder. Also, if you want to burn photos to a DVD, you can import pictures by clicking the "Add Photo" button on the right.

Step 3: Hit the Add Video option and load videotapes that you want convert to DVD or directly drag and drop your file to the program. You will then see the main interface as pictured in the below. Now, you can change the output disc type, quality and aspect ratio as desired by hitting the icons at the bottom of the interface.

Step 4 (Optional):Leawo DVD Creator provides some additional functions for you to burn a more personalized DVD disc. If you want to do some further edits to your video, click the edit button on the video, you can trim, crop, add special effects, add watermarks, or turn 2D video to 3D in the built-in video editor. You can also create a DVD menu base on the beautiful DVD menu templates.

Step 5: Finally, click the green "Burn" button to call out the burning setting panel, where you can set output format, whether you want to create an ISO file or folder, or you want to burn your video to an optical DVD disc. Then set an output directory. When you have set all of that, click the burn icon below to start burning. How long the burning process will take depends on the speed you have chosen in the third step. You can choose to shut down your PC when it's finished if you don't want to wait.

Video guide on Leawo DVD Creator

Part 4: How to test your converted DVD on PC

After converting a video tape to a DVD disc, how to make sure the DVD disc you have burned is good to be used? Well, you can just pick the Leawo Blu-ray Player to test your DVD disc. Why is Leawo Blu-ray Player? It contains many powerful features which can outweigh other media players to a great extent. For the detailed instructions on how to play video with Leawo Blu-ray Player, it is quite easy. What you need to do is to download the player and install it on your computer. Later, just import the video to the program and then you can see the video on the player easily. Just have faith in Leawo DVD Creator and Leawo Blu-ray Player. You can completely achieve what you want with the help of these programs.

Video guide on Leawo Blu-ray Player