I’ve been playing with the VuPoint ST100B Digital Video Converter for several days now, and so far I’m pleased with my impulse purchase. Digitizing old analog media is more an art than a science, but one that at least has gotten easier over the years.
Set-up with the VuPoint converter is quick and painless. It comes packaged with cords to plug into your TV and VHS player, and once you insert an SD card, hit power, and switch over to the right TV input, you’re good to go for recording. Your choices at this point are limited, but in this case, that’s a good thing. There are only four buttons on the VuPoint box – Power, Record, Play, and Next. Hit Record once to start recording, and again to stop. To enter playback mode, hit the Play button once, and then press it again to view your latest recording. If you have multiple videos recorded, use the Next button to cycle through your library.
And that’s it.
The one major downside to the VuPoint converter is that it encodes files in ASF format. That’s good for PC playback, but not much else. Luckily there are a number of free transcoding tools available to help you turn an ASF file into an MP4. I landed on Any Video Converter for this job after discovering that Handbrake wouldn’t work on my low-res netbook. The software worked handily until I learned that the free version apparently won’t work with video clips that run over an hour in length. Solution? Switch to a different computer in the house and back to Handbrake.
I never used the software CD that came with the VuPoint box, preferring to handle the video files on my own instead of dealing with someone else’s interface and management tools. The manual tells you the software on the CD is required to view your videos. It’s not.
Regarding quality, what can I say? Old VHS tapes are pretty low-quality to begin with. The MP4 files I ended up with are a little softer/smudgier than the ASF versions, but not by a lot. And given that we’re not talking high-def here anyway, the slight degradation from double transcoding doesn’t bother me. I never expected my old home movies to come out looking like Blu-ray. And frankly, the softness adds a touch of nostalgia, even if it doesn’t do enough to hide the ridiculous haircut I sported in the 1980s.
Bottom line: the VuPoint converter is a good buy if you’re looking for an easy way to digitize old tapes. Expect some extra work if you want to make your digital files play somewhere other than on a PC, and don’t expect HD quality results when you’re starting out with old analog recordings. Buyer’s Note: I snagged the VuPoint for $30 in a Just Deals deal, but I’ve seen the product listed several other places for only $20 or so more. Don’t go with the retail sites that try to sell it for $99. There are cheaper options.