Converting VHS to Digital Media: Preserving Your Memories from the Ravages of Time
More and more people are reliving old memories with a digital makeover and preserving them for their descendants with the knowledge that their old analog recordings have a short shelf life, especially when our old recordings are stored in a place that can be harmful to media. traditional analogs such as VHS or 8mm recordings.
How many precious family memories have you kept in your attic or degraded in an outbuilding? Over time this became dry and brittle like old packing tape and can easily tear. But dry tape is the least worrying thing for your archive. To their horror, many people dig up their old memories only to find that the inside of their old ribbons is covered by a thick “ribbon mold.”
The reason our precious files languish in dust is our inability to preserve those old memories on newer media like DVD. These days, there are many companies that specialize in converting our treasured memories and the possibilities are endless with new forms of editing software, as well as software that can improve the quality of our previous recording.
As we move on and away from the eighties and nineties, the rate of deterioration of the precious archive of analog recordings of the word should not be underestimated. The worst place we could choose to store our precious memories is the same place that people choose to store them: garden sheds; lofts and cellars. The British Library has advised that recordings be kept in a dark place away from moisture and heat.
VHS recordings have a shelf life of around ten years. Compare that to the fact that some of the earliest data recordings made in Japan still have data intact to this day.
Not only do digital recordings last longer than their analog counterparts, they are easy to store and display and are not made up of the bulky, unsightly plastic cases that once scattered the average home in the 1980s and 1990s.
As we move away from analog media and embrace digital media in our homes, we must revisit our family memories and remind ourselves that we must act now if we are to preserve what we have for the future.