geekhack
geekhack Community => Other Geeky Stuff => Topic started by: Daniel Beaver on Wed, 19 January 2011, 07:59:32
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Fellow geekhackers!
For awhile now, I've been looking into methods of preserving old family VHS tapes. My parents have many old home movies from the late 80's, up to the early 2000's which are currently rotting away in their closets. They've been trying to find ways of transferring them onto digital media, but have run into problems.
The tapes we value most, from the late 80's and early 90's, are in terrible shape. Some are barely watchable. We live in Puerto Rico and our house doesn't have air conditioning, so there isn't anyplace to store them that isn't hot and humid. We tried transferring them with some video-in equipment for the computer, but the fundamental problem is that the tapes are difficult to read.
My question: does anyone here know of any methods or online services which restore old VHS tapes? Ideally, a service that also transfers them to DVDs. I searched around, but I'm not to sure about some of the sites I've found. A lot of them seem to specialize in restoring mechanically unsound VHS tapes, not necessarily dirty ones.
We would love to keep these home movies, so any advice would be greatly appreciated.
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Local mom and pop video store near our house transferred my parent's wedding from betamax. You could try checking your area for one.
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http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-DVR620-DVD-Recorder-Black/dp/B001T6K7G6/ref=pd_cp_e_0 (http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-DVR620-DVD-Recorder-Black/dp/B001T6K7G6/ref=pd_cp_e_0)
These stand alone type devices might be less headache prone than going through the PC route. At least then it'll be on dvd and you can then put the dvd on pc and do stuff, just as long as your getting it digitally x'ferred. Never tried it though.