Just found my old Sony Hi8 tapes and camera in the garage where it has rested since we moved over here. gave it a bit of life when I uncovered the charger and my thoughts went to transferring the priceless (to me) analogue images to digital so that I can share with others. Looked on line for converter kits that I could use to feed Windows 7 with and came across a bewildering range from 15€ upwards, what did you use and what would you have preferred to use?
PS this will be a once used then throw away exercise so no esoteric kit please!!!
Now for hours of 'fun'.
I have the equivalent for vinyl to digital for my hundreds of 33s and 45s. Not to make the task too short, I also bought a cassette to digital thing. All in all, not even €60 for the lot.
£15.00 or so on Amazon, got to be worth a punt!!
I have a LogiLink VG0001A cable which I have used to digitise VHS tapes. I paid €12 in 2013. If you want to spend money then the Elgato Video Capture converter for about €100. I used a friend's one of the latter, being a cheapskate bought the former and do not really see much difference. There are plenty of them on the market though and absolutely no need for a converter/player that is obscure once everything is converted. I copied over a mountain of tapes with our daughters as babies, straight through to DVDs using Windows 7. It is not perfect but I did not really expect it to be.