Digitise your old media

Turn old audio into shiny new digital files using free software

- Carrie Marshall

Whether it's home movies on VHS or a library of classic vinyl, it's easy to capture the audio and video, play it and even improve it on your Mac.

If you have videos on CD or DVD, a portable CD/DVD drive is all you need; connect it, open it in Finder and drag the files across. An app such as Handbrake (handbrake.fr) can convert outdated file formats into more modern formats.

With VHS video, vinyl LPs or audio cassettes it’s slightly trickier; you'll need an analogue to digital interface for your VHS player or tape deck so your Mac can capture the video and/or audio.

Amplify the signal

For capturing video, we'd suggest trying iMovie first before looking into third-party apps. For audio, we'd recommend the excellent, free Audacity for recording and cleaning up. That's what we're using here.

If your turntable has USB, you can connect it directly to your Mac. For non-USB turntables, you'll get best results via a USB audio interface; connect the turntable to the interface, and the interface to your Mac.