Sound Advice: Converting tapes, vinyl a daunting task

Q I have hundreds, if not thousands, of VHS tapes, music audio tapes and vinyl records. I would like to transfer all of them to DVD-R and CD-R to eliminate some of this clutter. I do not own a computer. What sort of reasonably priced, stand-alone machine would you recommend to accomplish this task?

JOHN ALLEN, Minneapolis

A Before we get to equipment, you should consider the logistics of transferring thousands of VHS tapes, audio cassettes and vinyl records to disc. It might not be worth transferring your complete collection.

Those are all analog formats, and transfers take place in real time. If you have a two-hour VHS tape, it will take two hours to transfer it to disc, plus another 10 minutes or so to "finalize" the disc which allows it to be played on other DVD devices. If you devoted around nine hours per day to the task, you would transfer only four complete tapes. If you have 500 of them, you are looking at more than four months of continuous work just for the VHS tapes.

Vinyl records must be flipped every 20 to 30 minutes so you can record sides A and B. Ideally, they should also be cleaned before recording to ensure the best transfer possible, so transferring will probably take an hour per vinyl record. Analog cassettes require changing sides, as well, but you can get up to 45 minutes per side if they are home recordings. Unfortunately, an audio CD holds only about 70 minutes so it might be easiest to just put one side per disc.

Given the amount of time and work required to transfer everything, you might want to consider how often you will be watching the videos or listening to the music and be selective about what you transfer.

Also, if you want to eliminate clutter, you should consider whether you want to dispose of the originals. I strongly recommend against it. Find a place to store them in case you need them again, especially since the copies will not sound or look as good as the originals.

The Crosley Memory Master (www.crosleyradio.com) can convert vinyl records and cassette tapes to CD-R. I have not used it but can tell from the configuration that the record player is far from an audiophile-quality device. Your vinyl records will lose a lot of the sound quality when copied to a CD, but the music will be there. Your cassette tapes will likely fare better. The Crosley Memory Master can also be connected to a computer via USB. It lists for $399.

Any combo VHS/DVD recorder will transfer your VHS to DVD for you. They can be found for $150 or less if they do not have a TV tuner, $250 with a tuner. I prefer Toshiba. But if the tapes are prerecorded, copyrighted movies, the DVD recorder will not record them because of the copy protection.