Analog VHS Tapes to Digital · Preserve your video history
Your VHS tapes are getting old!
The birthday parties, anniversaries, Christmas mornings, vacations, and other special family memories that you, your parents, or grandparents recorded will be lost forever unless you convert them to digital — AS SOON AS POSSIBLE — time is of the essence to preserve their content.
Video tape was never made to last forever. It was never made to archive video for more than 10 years, let alone 20, and if you have been recording family events since 1979, your VHS video tapes are over 40 years old! The content may already be lost forever.
Over time the tape dissolves, loses its luster, and its chemical makeup that stores the video image and audio data. Also, each time you view the tape small particles are lost. Plus the tape, depending on the quality and brand, tends to stretch making the video image and audio become warped and unfixable.
If you stored your tapes in a location that air temperature was not constant, such as a basement, attic, or garage and the tape is over 10 years old and has not been watched in a long time, the image quality is going to be horrible, not that VHS displayed a great image in the first place, but the image will be worse that you remember or expect, and the chemicals in the tape may have made it stick to itself rendering it garbage.
Give your VHS tapes their last chance by converting them to digital. There is no need to keep storing them in hopes that you will be able to watch them in another 5 years. Let Davenport Video Digital Memories turn your Analog VHS tapes to Digital — if there is a chance to save them, we can do it. If we cannot, then they are no use to you and deserve a proper burial.
VHS and Analog tape history
The VHS (Video Home System) VCR (Video Cassette Recorder/Player) came to the public in 1975 and was discontinued in the Summer of 2016. It is unknown how many people still have a VHS VCR somewhere in the house. It is also unknown how many are used to watch movies, but those movies will not last forever and are losing their quality by over-watching them you stretch them.
I remember the only time you could see a movie outside of the theatre before 1976 was the Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, or Sunday Night movie presentations on network television, depending on the network. When BETA and VHS came out, we felt like royalty having the ability to watch a movie at home, anytime we wanted, if you could afford a VHS VCR before 1980, they were quite expensive. In the early 80s everyone had one it was like a refrigerator, a default appliance for the home. You also needed a Video Rental store to rent the movies on VHS · at one point we had 16 video rental stores in Grass Valley and Nevada City — remember this was before the advent of Cable/Satellite DVRs, Video-on-Demand, Smart TV, and internet streaming.
Then one day we had the ability to record anything we wanted onto analog tape. A birthday party, the mountains in the distance, the Forth of July parade, there was no limit to what we could capture and relive, and me being a video and film buff I did just that. At one point, before I began converting my VHS tapes to Digital, I had 60 VHS tapes, 40 BETA, and 100's of MiniDV tapes of family events, gatherings, and activities.
FACT: BETA lost the cheap analog tape war to VHS, but BETA had the better image quality. Attending film school in 2004, the industry used betamax tape machines NOT VHS because of the higher image quality. So you may have used VHS at home to watch your home or rented movies, but what ever was on tv you were watching them from of BETA.
So, after a 45 year run, VHS has been retired to Gadget Heaven, joining such legendary products as the BETAMAX, LaserDisc, 8 Track Tapes, and HD-DVD, all of which I owned, or still have. Your tapes do not have long to live. They are losing their ability to display their precious content. Get your VHS tapes to Digital as soon as you can.
What You Can Do to Protect the Content on Analog VHS Tapes
VCRs, including DVD/VCR combos, are no longer being made, and doing it yourself may be a challenge trying to find one to borrow and then get the media, as DVD's and blu ray discs are becoming less popular each year.
To get you started in the VHS to Digital conversion process, let Davenport Video Digital Memories handle the process. Since 1990 we have preserved, protected, and saved thousands of hours of unique, one of a kind, precious family home videos.
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