Should I worry about the age of my video tapes?

After 30 years, VHS tapes can deteriorate significantly. This deterioration, known as the "sticky-shed syndrome," is due to the breakdown of the binder, the glue that holds the magnetic particles to the tape's base. The symptoms of this breakdown include a sticky residue on the tape, which can cause the tape to stick to itself and the playback equipment. The image and sound quality can also degrade over time, leading to a loss of clarity, color fading, and dropouts in both audio and video.

Additionally, the physical tape can become brittle, making it more susceptible to breaking or being damaged during playback. Humidity and temperature fluctuations can accelerate these processes, so proper storage conditions are crucial for preserving VHS tapes over long periods.

It's also worth noting that the equipment needed to play VHS tapes, like VCRs, is becoming increasingly rare, which makes accessing the content on these tapes more challenging over time.

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Should I worry about the age of my video tapes?

March 29, 2024

After 30 years, VHS tapes can deteriorate significantly. This deterioration, known as the "sticky-shed syndrome," is due to the breakdown of the binder, the glue that holds the magnetic particles to the tape's base. The symptoms of this breakdown include a sticky residue on the tape, which can cause the tape to stick to itself and the playback equipment. The image and sound quality can also degrade over time, leading to a loss of clarity, color fading, and dropouts in both audio and video. Additionally, the physical tape can become brittle, making it more susceptible to breaking or being damaged during playback. Humidity and temperature fluctuations can accelerate these processes, so proper storage conditions are crucial for preserving VHS tapes over long periods. It's also worth noting that the equipment needed to play VHS tapes, like VCRs, is becoming increasingly rare, which makes accessing the content on these tapes more challenging over time.

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November 23, 2023

Today I will begin an overview of technologies that will assist you in understanding the capabilities of viewing your video entertainment, film reels from the past and audio files from various origins and media formats. You may ask yourself what are the options for me to convert my family video archive and film reels (or audio formats from tape and disc). The primary objective is to enable your archived content to be accessible and viewable on demand. The days of converting to digital video disk (DVD) are over! DVDs (while convenient and tangible) are not considered viable formats any longer due to the fact they can become scratched, broken or even lost. You certainly do not want to maintain heirloom family media on something that is destructible! Digital Video File in the format of MPEG-4 is non-destructible! It can be shared infinitely with as many people as you like and as often as you like, not to mention stored on as many devices as you choose. You also have options of saving your content on a website where it can be accessed at anytime from any place and at relatively low cost (fees are typically under $5.00 per month with most hosting providers such as pCloud, Sync, iCloud, Google Cloud and many others). You also may be concerned with sharing and shipping your priceless original content with companies like ours to have them digitized. Do not worry! We are experts at care and preservation of all media while in the conversion process. We not only convert old media, we also can repair it. If your media has been damaged, we can discuss preservation and repair processes. Our equipment is second to none and yields the finest quality results when converting to digital formats! UPS is also the most reliable shipper for your media with a 20+ year clean record of deliveries (never lost a package). Call us for more answers to your questions and check back with this blog for additional updates! We will cover Cloud Video and Audio storage options next!