VHS and Every Video Tape Format, Transferred to Digital Before the Signal Fades.
Magnetic tape loses a little more every year it sits in the closet
We capture your tapes at roughly 12.5 GB per two-hour tape, far less compression than the warehouse labs that squeeze a full hour into about 1 GB. More data means finer detail and richer color, monitored in real time by a technician, not run twelve-at-a-time in a rack.
Get a Free Tape QuoteIn-house in Orange, CA since 2001. We skip and never charge for blank footage.
“Lucy and Desi”
When the producers needed the family's personal video tapes converted for the Lucy and Desi documentary, they chose Legacy Digital Productions. Your family's tapes get the same equipment, the same technicians, and the same care.
Since 2001
Hollywood 's Choice
In-House Processing
Expert Technicians
Trusted with tapes for Netflix's Lucy and Desi, the San Diego Chargers, the Anaheim Ducks, and thousands of family libraries.
Consumer Video Tape Pricing
One flat rate for every home video format, from VHS to MiniDV, with no per-format upcharge. Priced per two-hour tape.
VHS, VHS-C, Betamax, 8mm video, Hi8, Video8, Digital8, MiniDV, and MicroMV, all the same price.
Roughly 12.5 GB per two-hour tape, far more detail than the ~1 GB-per-hour warehouse standard.
Every tape is monitored as it captures and tried in multiple decks if it plays poorly.
We trim blank footage and random recorded TV, and never charge for the empty parts of a tape.
Tapes 2 to 4 hours count as two, 4 to 6 as three. Only VHS runs past two hours.
Delivery on flash drive (orders under 256 GB) or hard drive, and optionally on DVD: $5 per disc for disc-only orders, $15 per disc when a drive is also included. $50 order minimum.
Professional & Broadcast Pricing
Broadcast masters need broadcast-grade decks and careful handling. We convert Betacam and Betacam SP with the same real-time monitoring as everything else.
Betacam
The broadcast standard introduced in 1982, common in newsrooms and studios.
- Broadcast-grade deck capture
- Roughly 6 GB of digital files per tape
- Real-time monitoring
- One flat price, no sale/regular split
Betacam SP
The 1986 Superior Performance upgrade, with higher resolution and longer-running tapes.
- Broadcast-grade deck capture
- Roughly 6 GB of digital files per tape
- Real-time monitoring
- Ideal for irreplaceable studio masters
Betacam and Betacam SP look nearly identical from the outside; if you are not sure which you have, we identify them for you. DVCam is a professional Sony format but is billed at the $19.95 consumer rate, not the Betacam rate.
What Does a Box of Tapes Cost to Transfer?
Consumer tapes are priced per two-hour tape, so counting your tapes gives you a close estimate right away, at the current $19.95 special.
| You have | Approx. cost |
|---|---|
| 5 standard tapes | ~$100 |
| 12 standard tapes | ~$239 |
| 25 standard tapes | ~$499 |
| 10 Betacam masters | $400 |
A three-hour VHS counts as two tapes. We edit out blank footage and skip random recorded TV, so your final files are the memories, not the static. Send them in for an exact, itemized quote.
How It Works
Getting your tapes to us is simple, and your originals always come home.
Send it to us
Free local pickup across Southern California, a secure prepaid shipping kit by mail, or drop off at our Orange, CA counter.
We digitize it in-house
Our own team captures each tape in real time, tries troublesome tapes in multiple decks, and trims the blanks. Nothing is shipped overseas.
You relive it
Get your videos as MP4 on a drive or DVD to share and stream, and your original tapes come back with them.
Why Your Tapes Are on a Clock
Videotape was never built to last forever. Every year in a closet the recording gets a little weaker, and some of the damage cannot be undone once it sets in.
Video is stored as magnetic charge on the tape. That charge weakens over time, so colors dull and the picture grows noisier with every passing year.
The binder that holds the magnetic coating to the tape absorbs moisture and breaks down. The tape turns sticky, sheds its coating, and can jam or squeal in a deck. Once it sheds, that footage is gone.
Tapes stored in garages, attics, and basements grow mold that eats the coating and contaminates any deck it touches. Caught early, many still transfer; left long enough, they do not.
Most consumer tape from the 80s, 90s, and 2000s is already past or near the end of its expected life. Digitizing now captures what is left before more of it is lost.
If a tape is already sticky, moldy, or squealing, do not keep trying to play it at home; each play can strip more of the coating. Send it in and we handle it with the right equipment. Read why your video tapes are fading
Why Two Labs Can Charge the Same and Deliver Very Different Results
A tape transfer is a live, one-time capture. What happens during that capture is what you keep forever.
We encode at roughly 12.5 GB per two-hour tape. Squeezing a tape down to about 1 GB throws away fine detail and color that you can never get back.
A technician monitors each capture as it runs. Warehouse operations play racks of tapes unattended, so dropouts and tracking errors sail straight through.
When a tape plays poorly, we try it in several different decks to pull the best possible signal off it rather than accepting a bad first pass.
We cut blank footage and random TV so you get only the memories, and we never charge you for the empty parts of a tape.
Which Tape Do You Have?
Not sure what you are looking at? Match your tape below and tap it for the details, or just send a mixed box and we sort and identify them for you.
Consumer and Home Formats
Professional & Broadcast
Low-compression MP4 or MOV files delivered on flash drive, hard drive, the cloud, or long lasting archival DVD.
How to Tell Your Tapes Apart
The shells look similar, but size and shape give each format away. Here is a quick guide, and remember you never have to be sure before you send them.
VHS is the full-size cassette you fed straight into a VCR. VHS-C is a palm-size version used in camcorders and needs an adapter to play in a VCR. Both hold analog video.
These three share the same small shell, about the size of an audio cassette, and came from 8mm camcorders. They are easy to mix up; we identify which is which by the recording, not the label.
Digital8 uses the same 8mm shell but records digitally. MiniDV is smaller still, a little larger than a matchbox, and was the dominant camcorder tape of the early 2000s.
Do not confuse the two. Betamax is the consumer rival to VHS, while Betacam is a professional broadcast format. They are priced differently, and we sort them for you.
Ask Before You Ship Your Tapes
| Question to ask | Legacy Digital | Typical big-box lab |
|---|---|---|
| How much data per tape? | ~12.5 GB / 2-hr tape | ~1 GB / hr |
| Monitored while capturing? | Real time, by a tech | Racked unattended |
| Charged for blank footage? | Never | Often yes |
| Where is the work done? | In-house, Orange CA | Often shipped out |
| Track record on lost media? | 0 lost in millions of items | Loss reports online |
How Your Tapes Become Digital
Check in and inspect
Every tape is logged and inspected. Tapes that need cleaning or repair are handled before capture.
Capture low-compression
Each tape is played and captured in real time at roughly 12.5 GB per two hours, tried in multiple decks if it struggles.
Trim the blanks
We edit out blank footage and random TV so your files are only the memories worth keeping.
Deliver your way
MP4 on a flash drive or hard drive, optionally on DVD. Your original tapes come home with you.
If you are not happy with your transfer, we redo it until you are.Handled entirely in-house in Orange, California. Your tapes never leave our facility or the country.
"Thank you Legacy Digital for putting my cherished family videos to digital. You showed care and professionalism towards the film. Delivered on time as you promised. Now my family will have this stuff for years."
- Andrew G.
Google Review
"I just has an old VHS of our ship's decommissioning given to me and I had no idea what to do with it. Legacy took care of that (DVD and MP4) and were very friendly and professional. I would use them again and recommend them to others."
- D. O.
Google Review
Why families choose us over the "big box" mail-in services.
Prepaid boxes look cheap until you see what those prices leave out.
Legacy Digital
Big Box Services
Every tape inspected and monitored during transfer
Pay only for tapes that actually convert
Work stays in the USA, in one facility
Time-based correction on VHS & VHS-C
Tape repair for damaged tapes
Well-maintained decks with clean heads
Our promise to you.
You only pay for what we convert.
Send 100 tapes and if only 16 make sense to convert, you pay for 16. Blank, damaged, or copyrighted tapes are never charged.
Every transfer is watched by a technician.
A 15-minute tape becomes a 15-minute file, not a 90-minute file with 5 minutes of video. We monitor every conversion in real time.
Highest resolution, no over-compression.
We never crush your files to fit smaller drives. Time-based correction is included free on VHS and VHS-C.
Done right the first time.
You will never pay another company to redo our work. We often fix the big box services' mistakes; we don't create them.
Frequently Asked Questions
Below are the most common questions we get about coneverting negatives to digital format. If you have other questions, please give us a call. We're happy to answer them.
Higher quality means bigger files, and bigger files need a bigger drive. We use far less compression than most high-volume labs, so a two-hour tape comes out to about 12.5 GB with us versus roughly 1 GB per hour of heavily compressed video elsewhere. That extra size is the finer detail and truer color the cheaper process throws away. We charge only what the drive itself costs for the storage your project needs, with no markup, so a larger drive isn’t an upcharge, it’s simply the room your higher-quality result takes.
DVCam and MiniDV are our standard DV formats. For DVCPRO or other professional DV variants, call us to confirm handling before you ship.
Yes. Every tape is logged and tracked, handled in-house, and returned. Across a million reels handled, we have never lost an item.
No. Just send the tapes; we capture them on maintained equipment, no hardware needed on your end.
DVCam records at a faster tape speed for more robust, reliable results, which is why it was used for professional events and production. It is related to MiniDV but sturdier.
Yes. If you are also converting other tapes, film, photos, slides, or audio, we place everything on the same drive in organized folders so your whole archive lives in one place.
Yes. MiniDV records a clean digital picture, generally sharper and more stable than analog VHS or Video8.
Often, yes. We try troublesome tapes in multiple decks to minimize digital dropouts, though heavily damaged tapes have limits. We pursue the best possible result.
No. Just send the tapes; we capture them on maintained equipment, no hardware needed on your end.
Yes. If you are also converting other tapes, film, photos, slides, or audio, we place everything on the same drive in organized folders so your whole archive lives in one place.
Have More Than Tapes?
Film, photos, slides, and audio all combine onto one drive with your videos.
Tape Does Not Wait. The Signal Is Fading Now.
Get a free, itemized quote. We count every tape, tell you the exact cost, and your originals always come home.
Get My Free Tape QuoteOr call (888) 405-2685 · Orange, CA · In-house since 2001
Are your videotapes still worth converting?
Often yes… But Legacy Digital can preview them and let you know!
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 will actually view your video tapes before converting them.
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.
Choosing the right company to digitize your video tapes can be overwhelming. There are hundreds of companies to choose from and each use their own method to convert your tapes.
Avoid "Big Box" companies and others offering low prices for video tape conversion
- They have a history of skipping tapes that are convertible.
- The image quality of your transfer may not represent the actual quality of the actual video footage due to them being converted on poorly maintained video players with clogged or dirty read heads.
- Your video tapes could be damaged by being played in poorly maintained machines.
- You may get back videos that are so low quality you may not want to share them, or worse, you could pay for blank video files. blank video files.
- May companies including the big box companies and the other “toss your stuff into our premade box” types often send your video tapes overseas for processing to keep costs low. This results in a lack of control, mishandling of your media, and even loss during bulk international shipping.
- Time-based correction is unavailable by default or offered for an additional fee.
- You 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.)
What you get with Legacy DIgital: Our promise to you!
- Legacy Digital will only convert videostapes that make sense to convert
- Legacy Digital’s expert technicians monitor all video tape conversions while the videotapes are being processed.
- Legacy Digital monitors video tape conversions. We will provide you with only a 15 minute video file if your tape has just 15 minutes of content.
- Legacy Digital will expertly convert your tapes at the highest resolution possible.
- Legacy Digital will not overly compress the digital files after converting your videotapes to fit more files on smaller drives or in the cloud.
- Legacy Digital includes time-based corrections at no additional cost when converting VHS ad VHS-C videotapes.
- Legacy Digital will never charge you for work that we don’t do. 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.
- Legacy Digital will do it right. You will not have to pay another company to redo the work we do.
- We offer a 100% Satisfaction guarantee. If you aren’t satisfied with the work we do, we’ll keep working on it until you are.