So being stuck at home for long periods of time makes your mind wonder.  In most cases its harmless, in a few cases it can be harmful, and then other times its somewhere in between – where time is wasted and then you wonder was it for any particular purpose or use.  One of the few “genius” ideas that resulted from a voluntarily inflicted house arrest – documenting and digitizing my old media.

• For video cassettes (Beta might be harder to find – but usually VHS), I opt for professional stores.  They are professional and buying the devices has a lot of upfront costs.  Seeing how this is a one time thing, it’s not very cost effective to invest in the devices if you get one main use out of them.
• Make sure you get DVDs, and once you do make sure you copy the DVD files on to your computer as a backup – and maybe even back them up in your Google Drive or post them privately on YouTube.
• If you have a reliable and solid cassette player already, you can easily get a chord that links it to your computer.  Download Audacity to record, edit and convert to MP3 easily.  This gives you a good quality conversion.
• Another option would be to buy a cheaper version of an MP3 converter which also acts as a Walkman.  Although the quality is questionable it does the trick if you aren’t too picky.  Too popular options are BlumWay and Reshow.  You’ll also need Audacity software, which is free, to make the conversion.  Worth checking YouTube for instructional videos, their manuals leave a lot to be desired.
• Keep in mind a lot of the commercial albums and songs you would like to digitize might already be on YouTube and can be easily converted that way to MP3s. With clearer quality and an easier process. Movies are also more likely to be there as well, and might be worth checking out before you go through the hassle of converting.