A tape being transferred in a converting VCR.

There are innumerable ways of reminding your family members that you cherish and appreciate their presence in your life. Preserving your home movies, etched in VHS tapes that are highly prone to irreversible damage, by digitizing them is a thoughtful (and often touching) way to do that. Digitizing your old home videos could be one of those gifts that’s relevant at any time of the year - whether you’re celebrating an occasion or a birthday of a loved one.

Turn those dusty boxes into a digital library!

Home videos recorded in film, VHS tapes, and DVDs can be preserved for years (or decades) in the right environment. However, this is much easier said than done because having this right environment involves complex planning and requires sophisticated tools and technology. If merely stored in a cool, dry place, the storage material can decay, thereby putting you at risk of losing your timeless memories forever. Thanks to advanced technology, that dusty box of VHS tapes and films in the basement can be digitized and preserved for future generations to enjoy. However, if you’re still considering whether you should digitize or hold on to existing copies of your videos, here are four reasons why we believe you shouldn’t wait to transfer and digitize your old home videos:

1. Retaining them on film makes your videos prone to irreversible damage

Replaying movie films on projectors makes it fragile, and you can damage your movies when you watch them. Unfortunately, film degrades quickly, and every time you run it through a film projector, you risk permanently damaging your film reels. And remember – once those home movies are damaged or destroyed, they’re gone for good.

If your films haven’t been properly cleaned or stored, they may disintegrate. Even if you’re not playing your home movies on a projector, your film reels might be getting damaged if you’re not storing them in a dry, temperate location. If you’ve got mold damage, the disintegration might be even worse.

Not reacting fast enough to preserve those family home movies, such as old footage of family Christmases, your wedding video, even your kids’ precious baby tapes, you risk the inevitable possibility of losing those precious memories forever. That’s because analog video, or Video Home System (VHS) tapes are deteriorating at a much faster rate year after year. Essentially, the magnetic layer responsible for recording and storing sound and images is losing its magnetic properties—resulting in the rapid degradation of your VHS tapes.

Depending on the condition in which they’ve been stored, VHS tapes only have a life expectancy of about 20 to 30 years. As video cameras became mainstream in the ’80s and ’90s, that means time is definitely running out.

What are optimal conditions?

A cool and dry environment constitutes optimal conditions for the storage of old home videos. It is better to have tapes stored in the house at room temp than a wet basement, garage, or hot attic. Heat and humidity are the leading causes of tape degradation. If your videotapes have been stored near a magnetic field--such as a stereo speaker--the signal loss can be more significant.

The difference in tape quality

There is a difference in tape quality. High-grade tapes tend to be more durable and have greater metal particle density which means a longer shelf life. Cheap tapes that flooded the market in the 1990s were cheap for a reason, flimsy cassette shells, low-density metal oxide, and inferior substrate, which reduces shelf life.

A crucial factor to consider!

VCRs are no longer manufactured. The last VHS recorder rolled off of the assembly line in 2016, and electronics companies no longer support old hardware. At Xpression Video Productions, we anticipated a shortage of VCRs and transfer systems. That’s why we stockpiled equipment and replacement parts for the future. We are always maintaining and repairing our VCRs and conversion systems to deliver consistently high-quality transfers. Eventually, components will wear out, and there won’t be any spare parts to keep the equipment working. Please don’t put it off. Get your tapes transferred today. A videotape that’s been viewed fifty times will show substantial wear, dropout, and damage. The tape will stretch with multiple rewinding and playback. The lubricant eventually wears away or turns into a sticky mess. It’s not a good idea to preview your twenty-five-year-old tapes on a twenty-five-year-old VCR. As the tape lubricant ages, it can become sticky and clog the playback heads. Also, an old VCR will often have issues with alignment, warped gears, rotted belts, and cracked rollers that will damage the tape. Wrinkled and creased tapes cannot be repaired.

2. Movies on film make you dependent on outdated technology

Video tape equipment (for replaying your videos) is disappearing. If you have home movies on VHS, do you still have a VCR to play those tapes? If not, you might not be able to play your tapes at all, because VCRs are no longer sold in regular stores – you can only get them in specialty shops or find them online with places like Kijiji. And there are fewer and fewer technicians who can repair old tape players!

If you’ve got videotapes in another format (like Betamax, Betacam SP, DV, DVC-Pro, DVCAM, Mini-DV, 8mm, Hi8, or Digital 8), you can probably view the movie by connecting the camera to your television. But do you still have the camera and the cables for playback? Even if you do have playback equipment, technology is changing rapidly, and old cameras aren’t always compatible with new televisions.

3. Your videos are precious to a lot of people

You can only identify who’s in the home movies while certain relatives are still alive to share those details. Want to identify everyone in your home movie of a family picnic that happened in the early 1970s? You need to talk to the people who actually attended that event, and those people aren’t going to be around forever. So, you need to think about your audience and convert your old movies. Do you have friends and family who do not live in your local area, who want to watch the film? If yes, you’re going to need a quick solution for your loved ones to access the footage.

4. DVDs are becoming obsolete too

Technology keeps changing, so old media formats aren’t compatible with current technology. Home movies on film reels and tape aren’t in the same format as digital files, so you can’t play them on your present-day tablets, computers, and phones. You can’t play a movie tape on a DVD or BluRay player, and you can’t play movie films or tapes on anything modern.

Although many people are comfortable watching videos from a DVD right now, it’s important to understand that DVDs are a playable format now; however, the format is rapidly becoming obsolete. Most new computers and laptops do not have DVD players in them as standard. Therefore, while converting your home videos into DVDs may still be a great idea, digitizing your tapes is much more future-proof.

Here are two samples of the types of transferring services we provide.

The power of digitization

A significant majority of people use digital media players like mp3 players, DVD players, smartphones, and tablets to view content nowadays. Migrating your content to digital format also allows you to present your content to a wider audience via digital channels. The power of digitization allows you to share your content on a number of web platforms – including YouTube, social media, websites, and blogs – allowing access to millions of potential viewers previously unreachable. By converting old films, tapes, and media to a digital format, you’ll be able to create documentaries, video infographics, digital timelines, and many other types of evergreen digital assets. Digitizing your home movies offers a plethora of advantages. By having a backup of all digital data files to a cloud platform such as Google Drive or DropBox, you can ensure that your memories stay protected from weather and climate changes. It also provides you the convenience of giving you instant access to it from any place in the world. Preserve your old memories today before it’s all too late. If you haven’t cleaned and stored your videos properly, now may be an excellent time to find a permanent solution to the cause.

If you’re looking for assistance with converting your tape-based media into digital media, reach out to Xpression Video Productions. We use our professional equipment to convert digital content on CDs and DVDs for playback on computers, tablets, and smartphones. We also have a professional, high-resolution scanner for converting the old film into digital media formats for prolonged storage. We offer Video Transfer and Duplication Services to clients across Toronto and the rest of Ontario.

To learn more about the services we offer, please click here. To get in touch with us, please click here.

Why You Shouldn’t Wait To Transfer And Digitize Your Old Home Videos?