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Preserving VHS Recordings For Another 20 Years?

Posted by Cliff on from the keeping-the-memories-alive dept.

efedora asks: "I have about 650 hours of VHS tape going back about 20 years (no, not my porn collection) and the tape is starting to deteriorate. What are the best options for preserving the contents? Quality is important but not critical, so long as it's close to the original. Very low labor cost/time and simple operation. are important. Is there an easy way to do this?"

"Some of the ideas I've had so far are:

  • VHS to VHS tape with an analog 'clean up' box between the VHS machines. This would give me the same number of tapes but should last another 20 years. Quality will degrade.
  • Burn DVD's direct from VHS tape. I have software that will do this. Expensive and the DVD's won't even hold a VHS tape if it's 2 hours long. Good quality with no degradation.
  • Burn VCD's. I don't know of any simple direct-to-VCD software that will do this so there would be a large labor overhead. Good quality with some degradation. Cheap.
  • VHS direct to cheap IDE drives. Good quality with no degradation. Relatively cheap. Probably could use the same technique as burn-to-dvd."

4 of 516 comments (clear)

  1. Re:ATI All In Wonder by dirkdidit · · Score: 5, Funny

    This is crazy but it'd work. Print every frame out one by one. This comes out to something like 70,200,000 pieces of paper, which as long as kept away from open flame, sunlight, moisture, wind, etc will essentially last forever. Plus the bragging rights for having a huge pile of paper is cool. (23,400 feet high to be exact given that paper is 0.004 inches thick, of course quality of paper will affect this.;-)

  2. Flip Book! by The+Turd+Report · · Score: 5, Funny

    Oooh... Giant Flip-book!

    --
    Michael Loves Me!
  3. Re:ATI All In Wonder by jspoon · · Score: 5, Funny

    Modern paper is too acidic, it will just eat itself up given enough time. I'd opt for inscribing it in tablets of lead, myself. That would sacrifice color, but you could make three tablets for every frame...

  4. Re:ATI All In Wonder by Binestar · · Score: 5, Funny

    OTOH, my phono record collection dates back to 1949.

    [lame humour attempt]
    If you bought everything in your phono collection new maybe you should start worrying about preserving yourself for another 20 years instead of your music...
    [/lame humour attempt]

    --
    Do you Gentoo!?