• Tapes can warp or stretch even when not in use, especially if stored improperly.
• Dust and dirt can settle on tapes, potentially causing scratches or playback issues.
• If a damaged tape is played in a VCR it can clog or damage the read heads of the machine. Playing additional tapes in a machine with clogged heads can cause damage to other tapes.

• Even in storage, the magnetic particles on your tapes are slowly losing their alignment.
• This gradual demagnetization causes images to become fuzzy and colors to fade.
• Adjacent layers of tape can transfer magnetic signals, creating ghost images or echoes.

• The binder that holds magnetic particles to the tape is breaking down over time.
• This can lead to flaking or shedding of the magnetic layer, taking your memories with it.
• Oxidation of metal particles further degrades image quality.

Beyond physical decay, you’re facing a race against technological obsolescence:

VCRs and other playback devices are becoming increasingly rare.

Finding working equipment to view your tapes will only get harder as time goes on.

When camcorders grew in popularity during the 1980s and 1990s nobody was wondering how long the tapes would last.  We just assumed they’d last forever.  But now we’re learning that they don’t.

On average video tapes continuously lose about 10-20% of their quality every 10-25 years.

And it could be worse as many people store their tapes out of the way in places like garages or attics where they are exposed to extreme temperature and moisture changes, a tapes worst enemy.

II’s important that you do something now to save what’s left of your memories. The longer you wait, the more your videos will degrade, and you might lose those special moments forever.

When video tapes break down they become brittle and the magnetic media starts to separate from the tape.  You may be able to shake your tapes and look through the clear plastic window for black flakes.  If you see these, it’s not a good sign.  These black flakes are the shedding of the media.

If you play these tapes, they can actually clog the read heads on your VCR.  And if the read heads aren’t cleaned and maintained, playing other tapes in the same machine can cause you to believe the tapes are bad, or even damage to them if they were fine to begin with.

Everyone knows the saying, “You get what you pay for.”

This is true with video tape conversion as well.  But it could be even worse.

Mass production big box companies who transfer hundreds or thousands of tapes each day can’t put the time and effort into maintaining their equipment while still checking each tape, watching the video for picture quality, and run the videotape multiple times if necessary while still making a profit.  And they certainly can’t do it at a cost of $7.99 per tape.

These poorly maintained machines cause a lot of problems in our industry. And sadly, many good tapes are assumed to be bad because they are played on these poorly maintained machines with dirty read heads.  And worse, many tapes are actually damaged as a result of it.  Don’t live with the regret of this happening to you and your video tapes all to save a few bucks.

Our experts understand the causes of poor picture quality.  

We assess every video tape before loading it into one of our players. If a tape can’t or shouldn’t be converted, we’ll let you know.

Once loaded we monitor every video tape as it’s being transferred for video quality. If the quality doesn’t meet our expectations we will go through our manual propriatry process to capture the highest quality end product possible from the tape we are working with.  Sometimes this involves rerunning the tapes multiple times and on multiple machines.  We also meticulously aintain our equipment cleaning the heads sometimes after each video tape and we replace them regularly.

We strongly recommend that you have your videotapes assessed to see if they can be converted.  We can do this for you.

If things look good, we will convert your video tapes to digital files immediately.  You should do this as soon as possible, especially if you care about preserving the memories for the future.  And we make it very easy and affordable for you.  Get a quote here.  

And if you are still doing research, and you aren’t ready to convert them, bookmark this page so you can come back.  Then make sure you are storing your original tapes vertically in a cool, dry place away from sunlight and magnetic fields.

Always handle tapes with clean hands and minimize exposure to dust and contaminants.

And remember, every day you wait is another day your memories fade. Don’t let procrastination erase your family’s history. Take action now to preserve your irreplaceable moments for future generations.

Click here to get a quick estimate to find out what it will cost to preserve your memories before they are lost forever.  

As years pass we see more tapes that aren’t worth converting, but most are.  Let Legacy Digital can preview them to help you determine which tapes are worth converting.

We go the extra mile when converting your video tapes.  Unlike other companies who will deliver grainy and unwatchable or even blank video files, Legacy Digital monitors your video tapes while we are converting them and we review the footage after it has been captured.

We won’t charge you for tapes that we can’t convert.  We also won’t charge you for commercial movies or copyrighted material that we can’t legally convert.  

Sometimes we get video tapes that are broken or twisted.  In these cases if they seem salvagable, we’ll actually work to repair the tapes so that we can recover the video on them.  We’re not aware of anyone else in the industry who’ll go to the lengths that Legacy DIgital will to convert your old video tapes and bring the prescious memories back to life.  

Our goal is simple.  We want to make sure that you get what you pay for, and don’t pay for what you don’t want. 

Start a quote or order and send all your tapes in.  

We’ll even help you figure out which ones are worth converting and which ones aren’t – and we’ll likely save you money in the process.   

Just know, when you choose Legacy Digital for your video tape conversion, you can feel confident that you are making choice.

Yes, most likely.  We work with just about every videotapes format. We can convert your VHS, Super VHS, Compact VHS (VHS-C), 8 mm, Hi8, Digital 8, MiniDV, Betamax and DVCAM to digital MP4 or MOV files, on request, stored on a hard drive or thumb drive using our professional-grade recording equipment. If you want to convert your old videos to DVD we can do that too using professional gold archival DVD disks. 

1. The videotapes you receive may not be of a quality you’d want to share.
2. Your video tapes could be sent overseas for processing subjecting them to lack of control, mishandling, and even loss during bulk international shipping.
3. You might end up paying more to have the work redone properly. (We often handle such cases and are happy to help, but we regret that customers didn’t hear this warning beforehand.)

1. We will only convert videostapes that make sense to convert
2. If a video has 15 minutes of footage, your video file will only be 15 minutes long.
3. Your video tapes will be expertly converted at the highest resolution possible.
4. Your videotapes will not be overly compressed to fit them on a smaller drive.
5. Your video tapes will be processed in our offices by our expert technicians.
6. Even if you send us 100 video tapes and only 16 make sense to convert, you will only pay for the video tapes we convert.
7. You will not have to redo the work with a more reputable company.
8. We offer a satisfaction guarantee.  If you aren\’t satisfied with the work we do, we\’ll keep working on it until you are.