Millions of families have priceless memories stored on old VHS tapes. After all, VHS was the home movie standard for more than 2 decades. However, they won’t last forever, which is why it’s so important to turn them into digital copies before the home movies fade away.
Capture has already preserved memories for over 12 million families, but we don’t want anybody to lose their memories. That’s why we put together this guide to revitalizing your memories with a VHS conversion service.
Keep reading to learn about VHS tapes and the importance of VHS restoration and conversion, how the conversion process works, factors to consider when choosing a service, and more to help you make the best choice for your family memories.
Jump to:
- Understanding VHS Tapes
- The Need for VHS Conversion Services
- How VHS Conversion Services Work
- Factors to Consider When Choosing a VHS Conversion Service
- DIY vs. Professional VHS Conversion
- Steps to Prepare VHS Tapes for Conversion
- Post-Conversion Considerations
- Case Studies and Success Stories
- Future of VHS Conversion Services
Understanding VHS Tapes
VHS tapes were introduced in the late 70s and, after the videotape wars between VHS vs Betamax, became the most popular home movie format until the first digital camera led to digital camcorders that eventually replaced it.
During that time, countless hours of home movies were captured on the magnetic tape encased in the VHS cassette. While it took a while for VHS VCR systems to leave people’s homes, these days it’s even hard to find a VCR for sale.
While VHS tapes were a great analog video format, they don’t last forever. In fact, most old VHS tapes are already starting to degrade, which could mean that your memories are lost forever. This is especially true if they aren’t stored in a cool, dark, dry place.
That highlights the need for VHS conversion services.
The Need for VHS Conversion Services
We’ve already pointed out the most important purpose of VHS conversion services: to preserve your VHS memories before they fade or degrade into the past forever. However, there are additional advantages of affordable video format conversion.
First, with digital files, you can easily share your home movie memories online over email and social media. Anyone will be able to enjoy them every day, which means you can finally share and reminisce over those priceless memories from years past.
Plus, digital videos can be easily uploaded to Google Photos and organized with your other family memories. You can create virtual scrapbooks or even make video 30 year anniversary gifts. With video editing tools, you can even make slideshows, add effects, combine footage, and so much more.
As you can see, there are tons of benefits to using a VHS digitization service, so how do they work?
How VHS Conversion Services Work
To use a VHS conversion service, you will either send them your VHS tapes or drop off your tapes at a local store. Don’t worry though, because the most reputable services take good care of them, not only offering tracking and security, but even offering minor repairs and case replacement as needed.
Once the VHS conversion service receives your tapes, they will begin analog to digital conversion.
Using professional equipment to read the data off of your video cassettes and transfer it into digital copies, they can then perform DVD transfer, add it to a USB drive, or upload it to the cloud for you to enjoy.
Then, they will send your original media back to you as well as the digital download or other digital copies.
However, most don’t just do this for VHS tapes, but can accept a wide variety of analog media including other videotapes like Betamax, MiniDV, VHS-C, S-VHS, PAL format VHS, Hi-8, Digital 8, and more. Additionally, some offer a bulk photo scanning service and film transfer for Super 8, 8mm, and 16mm film reels. While it’s less common, some will transfer audio cassettes too.
How long this takes and the quality will depend on the specific company you choose to transfer VHS to digital. So, how do you choose one?
Factors to Consider When Choosing a VHS Conversion Service
There are tons of video transfer services to choose from like Capture, LegacyBox, iMemories, ScanCafe, and more. You should keep several factors in mind to help you choose the best company to digitize home movies, including quality, pricing, turnaround time, security, and more.
Quality of Conversion
The quality and resolution of conversion is an important factor. After all, you don’t want your precious memories to look blurry or discolored. Make sure you choose a reputable brand that has a track record of delivering premium digital media. You can check their previous results and reviews to get a good idea.
Pricing and Packages
Pricing between one company and another can vary drastically, so make sure you keep that in mind. We recommend getting a quote or checking the price for your specific order from multiple places. This is because there are different structures with LegacyBox pricing being based on expensive packages of the number of tapes you have while Capture offers competitive costs based on the length of footage to offer the fairest price.
Turnaround Time
Turnaround time, or the amount of time from when you send your tapes and get them back, can vary from a few weeks to several months. This is especially important if you are digitizing VHS tapes for personalized Christmas gifts or 70th birthday gifts. Additionally, make sure they stick to their claimed turnaround time by checking out reviews.
Security
Make sure the company you choose will take good care of your precious memories throughout the digitization process. Many options offer barcode scanning to track your order, while others include tracking and security every step of the way. Just be wary of those who send your memories halfway across the world for digitization.
Reputation and Reviews
While it’s great to check the services and claims from different VHS transfer services, it’s critical to check reviews. You might find that a service that looks great, but reviews indicate that it takes much longer to deliver your digital copies, offers terrible quality, or loses media way too often.
DIY vs. Professional VHS Conversion
While a VHS conversion service can do everything for you to turn your VHS tapes into digital format, you also have the option of digitizing your own home videos. While it can be an affordable option and offer decent results, it won’t be as good as the quality you get from a professional digitization service.
Additionally, DIY transfer can be incredibly time-consuming because you can only transfer at the regular playback speed. However, it can be a fun process for tech-savvy people who find video transfer easy. If that sounds like you then you can check out digital converters, software for converting VHS to digital, and adapters to create flash drive or DVD copies.
Still, for those who don’t want to spend hours converting their own videotapes, a service can be a great option. While it might be slightly more expensive depending on the VHS conversion service you choose, it is worth it to preserve your memories in the highest possible quality.
Steps to Prepare VHS Tapes for Conversion
Before sending your VHS tapes to a conversion service, it’s a good idea to prepare them properly. While many services like Capture will perform cleaning and minor VHS tape repairs, others insist that you do so yourself.
Regardless of the video conversion service you choose, we recommend labeling your tapes for easy organization. This is great for both you and the service. Plus, it will help you organize your tapes and digital downloads for easier sharing.
Also, we suggest using packing peanuts or bubble wrap to keep your VHS tapes during transit. After all, they are the only copies of your memories.
Post-Conversion Considerations
After converting your VHS tapes to digital, there are some after-conversion considerations that we recommend. First, make sure you store them properly with metadata and folder labeling.
After video tape to digital conversion, you can change the video format as well. Some offer smaller file sizes that preserve your hard drive storage while others offer higher quality, easier sharing, and other benefits. You can also find affordable video format conversion services and software to simplify the process.
Additionally, you can enhance and edit your videos using video editing software. This can remove damaged portions, combine priceless videos, and create crisper videos perfect for gifts and sharing.
After that, you can share your favorite memories to your heart’s content with friends and family. Post them on social media, hold home movie watching parties, send them via email, and finally enjoy your precious memories in high quality digital format.
Case Studies and Success Stories
Millions of people have had success with digital conversion services and tape transfers, creating lasting memories that they can pass on to future generations. Not only does that add tons of enjoyment and nostalgia into their lives but helps preserve their family histories.
In fact, Capture has tons of success stories from more than 12 million happy families. Just check out some of the reviews we’ve had just recently:
"Nice and timely, pretty decent transfers. Glad to have my VHS's digitized." - Lliam G.
"Very pleased with the process and attention to detail with Capture. One of my tapes had a bad spot, which was spliced out and physically included in the return package. I was also told the amount of footage that was lost (due to them being old tapes) which was a short 13 seconds, and this set my mind at ease. The anxiety that these memories could be lost due to tape degradation are now gone." - Jim W.
"They went above and beyond to do exactly what I wanted with my 45 year old movies. I would highly suggest them." - Susan M
Click here to check out more Capture reviews and testimonials!
Future of VHS Conversion Services
As long as there are still VHS tapes, there will be VHS conversion services. However, we expect there to be some changes in the upcoming years.
One thing we think will happen is that AI will be utilized more during the process for automated editing and enhancement. Plus, AI can help with organization and adding data for easy searchability.
Another possibility is that home movies and VHS tapes will be turned into virtual reality movies, allowing you to relive your memories again. These types of immersive experiences would bring old memories to life and may even offer treatment applications for Alzheimer's and dementia.
Who knows what else the future might hold? However, you don’t want to wait too long for advancements because your VHS tapes are only going to keep deteriorating.
Conclusion
Now that you know what to look for when choosing a VHS conversion service, the types of things you should do before and after VHS tape transfer, and some of the applications of VHS to DVD conversion, it’s time to choose a service.
Capture offers a multi-million dollar tracking and security system to monitor your memories every step of the way, countless positive reviews, and an industry-leading turnaround time. Plus, we offer the highest possible quality results for your precious memories. Click here to learn more about our best-in-class VHS conversion services.
