Everyone has a collection of VHS tapes chronicling family vacations, birthdays, weddings, graduations and holidays. VHS was the primary format for home media entertainment for over a decade. By the mid 1990s, 84 percent of U.S. households owned at least one VCR. The VHS tape was the gold standard for recording home movies.
In 1996 Toshiba introduced the optical disc which offered higher video quality then its predecessor. The introduction of the DVD (digital video disc) soon marked the decline of the VHS videotape. The DVD easily replaced VHS tapes because of its ability to reproduce higher resolution images and digital quality sound. It also featured video interactive capabilities like disc menus and chapter searches. As a result, the television and camcorder market quickly transitioned to digital video. DVD quickly became the preferred medium for recording.
However, many videotape users still held onto their old VHS tapes assuming that they would last indefinitely. Unfortunately that’s not the case, over time the components of magnetic video tape degrade. Exposure to heat and moisture over time cause decaying magnetic particles. Unless videotapes are transferred to digital format, their video and audio will fade away and eventually be irretrievable.
A DVD won’t degrade over time and has a lifespan of more than 50 years. So don’t wait any longer and archive your VHS collection onto DVD before your memories become nothing more than a screen full of static.
Please visit Icehouse Pictures in Plymouth, Massachusetts to discuss your VHS to DVD project with a video conversion specialist!