VHS to DVD transfer is in high demand these days. And not just for old VHS tapes but for any video tapes that captured special family memories from years ago. Many families still store videos on VHS and other tapes in big numbers across Australia. Your family may have irreplaceable memories stored on those tapes. But is it too late to transfer your VHS tapes to digital now?
ON THIS PAGE:
- VHS Background & History
- VHS Tape Damage Remedies
- VHS Video Restoration Services
- VHS Tape Decay May Destroy Your Videos If You Don’t Act Swiftly
- VHS Video Tape Restoration and Repair
- VHS to DVD Transfers & Digital Formats: Your Transfer Options
- VHS to DVD Transfers: Convert Your Memories to DVD & USB Memory Sticks
- Extract Photos & Videos from Your Mobile Phone
- Your Final Digital Video Format Options
- Digitising Rates & Specs
- Contact Us To Get Your Tapes Transferred to Digital Now!
- Transform Your Old Videotapes to Digital Now!
- See What Our Customers Say on Google
VHS Background & History
VHS is short for Video Home System, developed by JVC in or about the 1970s. But it wasn’t until the 1990s that Australian families would extensively adopt the format for recording and viewing videos. VHS was the most popular format in the days’ someone would go to a video store or a video library like Blockbuster to rent the latest films for watching at home.
The Sydney Morning Herald’s Garry Maddox recently wrote, in the early part of the 21st century, it’s believed nearly 90% of Aussie households had a video cassette recorder (VCR). And many homes had 2 or 3 VCR’s to play all sorts of videos at home.
Many family videos, weddings and birthday parties of Australian families used the VHS format. Most homes had a VHS player in the 1990s and early 2000s, so it was easy to share videos with family and friends. That means there are countless homes that have old family movies on VHS. Some of these tapes can be 30 years or older. And they won’t last forever.
Michelle Arrow from the Sydney Morning Herald recently referred to VHS and the home VCR writing in an article, “There’s no back-up copy’: Australian treasures are on the brink of destruction”. This is not only true for Australian families with their own precious family memories, but also a lot of Australian historical content held be the National Archives of Australia.
Some of the largest manufacturers in the world made VHS machines. These were often VHS players, recorders and cameras. These companies included JVC, Sony, Panasonic, Teac and Samsung. And there were even more companies producing VHS tapes with probably the most popular VHS tape manufacturer was BASF.
VHS Tape Damage Remedies
When you bring your VHS into our studio for transfer to DVD or digital formats, we will always check the tapes. Your tape’s condition will be evaluated before transfered to digital. We will carefully clean by hand any mould from your tapes. We use a specially formulated isopropanol solution to clean both sides of the tape. special attention is also given to cleaning the hubs and tape mechanisms to ensure the best video and audio quality for your digital transfer.
VHS Video Restoration Services
Many VHS tapes are now aging quickly. And considering some tapes were recorded back in the 1980’s, that means they are more than 30 years old. This means the importance of services like those we offer that convert VHS to digital and VHS to DVD transfers have never been so urgent. Over many years, these tapes often suffer from poor storage and tape decay will be evident with picture and sound loss.
A good example of this is shown here in this example. Note the left video is the original VHS video without restoration. The sample on the right is the result of our VHS transfer to digital restoration service . You can see the exact same video sample here with restored picture quality. The digitised video does not jump, with colour and detail restored. The problems shown here with the original video are not always apparent until the transfer is done. But our restoration service shows the results here are quite remarkable.
VHS Tape Decay May Destroy Your Videos If You Don’t Act Swiftly
VHS and many other video or audio tapes can suffer badly from tape decay. This often occurs if you store your tapes poorly. Moisture builds up over many years and mould soon appears. Mould will build up on the surface and on the edges of VHS tapes. This is not surprising because mould can find it’s way on any surface where water or moisture is present. Storing your VHS tapes in a high humidity area will soon bring mould. Note, mould is a living organism. And like any other living thing, mould needs to eat to survive. So the problem with mould on VHS tapes is that it will spread and eat away at the surface of your tapes causing damage to the tape’s picture and sound quality leading the tapes to disintegration. This is common if they stored the tapes for years outside of their case. When you consider some VHS tapes are from the 1990s or even the 1980s, it’s time to clean and transfer your tapes to digital before it’s too late.
An Example of a Mouldy VHS Tape Before and After Cleaning
Note the before and after images below a mouldy VHS-C tape; we cleaned and repaired. There was a lot of white chalky looking mould that you can see on the edges of the tape. After cleaning the tapes by hand, the mould disappears and the video is suitable to perform a high quality digital transfers to the format of your choice.
To see the before and after example of our tape mould cleaning services, move the vertical line left to right.
VHS Video Tape Restoration and Repair
Often when we convert VCR video to digital our service calls for the repair of a VHS videotape when it has been stored incorrectly over a lengthy period and suffer damage. Moisture present in your home means it will invite mold into any area of the house. Even where your precious VHS video tapes are stored. And if you don’t act promptly, your family videos may become lost forever.
We recently had a client present a box of videos with a major problem. Mold was terrible on some tapes. Plus, someone had jammed a few of the tapes in the VHS machines over the years. In desperation, our client attempted a repair job on one tape but it didn’t go well. He pulled apart the shell to fix the crushed tape but he could not reassemble the VHS tape shell again properly. So he called us to see what we could do.
We first dissembled the tapes and removed the spools of tape from the old damaged tape shell. Then we used a brand new shell to fit his tape into. The new VHS shell is clean and free from mold. And because the gears, spools and rollers were new, our client’s tape worked well in its new case. We then cleaned both sides of the tape surfaces plus the tape edges with isopropyl alcohol and ran it slowly through the VHS machine to ensure smooth playback.
We noticed the tape was previously crushed in some portions but our client was lucky that 95% of his family memories were fine. We converted the VHS tape to digital and now he can treasure these irreplaceable memories forever.
VHS to DVD Transfers & Digital Formats: Your Transfer Options
Transferring your VHS videos is no longer only confined to the DVD format. DVD players are less popular in homes and even in PC’s today. USB ports are now common on PC’s, laptops, TV’s and even mobile phones these days. So we can perform high quality video to digital transfer from your VHS videos to a USB memory stick. These are available in USB2, USB3 and USB-C forms. Your USB memory stick will include files suitable to use on your device. Popular formats are mpeg2 and mpeg4 for video. Mpeg4 (also known as mp4) can be easily uploaded to social media platforms or video platforms like YouTube or Vimeo allowing you to easily share your videos online with family and friends. If you are unsure which format is best, be sure to ask us and we will suggest the most convenient alternative for you.
Some of the Formats We Transfer to DVD & USB Memory Sticks
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VHS to DVD Transfers: Convert Your Memories to DVD & USB Memory Sticks
There are many different formats of tape and film that we can offer in our video digitising services. These include:
- VHS – The most widespread anologue video format of the 1980’s to 2000’s. Used in family homes worldwide including Australia
- VHS-C – A compact form of VHS using the same tape size but in a compact case improving portability and use in small camcorders
- Video 8 – Sony’s original analogue 8mm magnetic tape developed for Camcorders used in many family homes
- Hi8 – The second generation of 8mm tape capable of higher resolution video than it’s predecessor Video 8
- Digital Hi8 – Making use of basically the same 8mm tape, this format stores the audio and video info in a digital form
- Betamax – The main rival for VHS, Beta was considered to have better picture quality but was not widespread in use
- 8mm Film – Motion picture film on 8mm gauge film popular in the 1950’s to 1960’s. Typically running at 18 frames per second (fps)
- Super8 Film – Popular in the 1970’s, Using the same gauge as 8mm film Super8 saw the sprocket holes reduced and enlarge the image size for improved picture quality
- 16mm Film – Essentially double the image size as 8mm improving picture quality. The frame rate is usually 16fps or 24fps
- 35mm Film – Still used today in motion picture film cinema running at 24fps
- 35mm Slides – Before digital cameras, film camera users had the choice of photos or slides. The main advantage of slides was they were cheaper to produce and could be projected on a large screen for all to share
Extract Photos & Videos from Your Mobile Phone
Do you have an old iPhone, iPad, Android phone or tablet that have photos or video you’d like to preserve? We can transfer just about any of your files to a DVD or USB too. This service has been popular with clients that have a phone a few years old that they no longer use. But these phones often have priceless family photos and videos recorded and stored by their phone. We have the software tools and experience to collect your phone data and present them to you on a DVD or USB memory stick, your choice.
Your Final Digital Video Format Options
When you use our VHS to DVD transfers or other videos to digital media there are many options available to you. These include:
USB Memory Stick (also known as Thumb Drive)
You can supply your own USB memory stick or we can provide one for you. Typically a 16gb memory stick holds about 8 hours of video. We can supply a 16gb USB sticks to you from $15 each.
USB Hard Disc Drive
We can transfer your videos to your own USB portable hard disc drive. This is a good solution that’s quick and portable, however these hard drives can be very fragile and damaged easily if dropped so we always recommend you backup your videos to USB memory sticks too.
On Line & Internet Formats including YouTube
We can upload your video transfers to a private YouTube channel. The big advantage of doing this is that the links can easily be shared with all your friends and family anywhere in the world with an internet connection. We do recommend however that you still have a copy on USB memory sticks as a back up. Ask us about how we can create a private channel for you.
DVD
Your videos are encoded to Mpeg2 format then preserved on a DVD-R disc. These discs can be played in most DVD stand alone players and DVD drives in PC’s, for example. Although DVD’s are becoming less popular, many people still have a DVD player and prefer this format for many reasons including their durability if the discs are cared for and stored correctly.
Contact Us To Get Your Tapes Transferred to Digital Now!
If you have VHS tapes or any other video or audio tapes or films that you need transferred, why not contact or call us today to get a quote? All we need to know is how many tapes you have and their approximate length. We can then give you an estimate for your job. You can drop into our studio or we can arrange our courier to pick up your tapes. Delivery is a flat $15 Australia wide. Plus, we will guarantee results.
Got More Questions about Video to Digital Transfers?
We’ve compiled the top 15 questions people ask in our Video to Digital FAQ page, and we’re here to provide clear, concise answers. From understanding the different types of services available to choosing the right file format for your needs, we’ll guide you through the maze of choices to ensure your digital keepsakes stand the test of time.
Transform Your Old Videotapes to Digital Now!
When it comes to preserving old family memories captured on video, VHS to digital conversion has become an important step for many of us. As technology moves on, and environmental conditions like moisture and mould play their part, it means that transforming your old videotapes to digital should be done as soon as possible. Video specialists like Moving Memories specialise in the meticulous process of video restoration and preservation. Offering a wide range of services that will breathe new life into your old videotape formats.
Many special memories captured on video like a family gathering, a Christmas party, a wedding, or even a portion of your childhood, should be preserved and restored in a modern accessable and shareable format.
For those curious about us, we have been producing and resoring video since 1996. Rest assured choosing Moving Memories to restore your old videos is supported by our expertise and reputation in our industry. And commended by our reviews from many customers.
We guarantee results!