You can no longer assume your VHS videotapes will play.

For over a decade and thousands of transfer projects, we’ve enjoyed digitizing our customers’ videotapes with little or no problems. More recently, however, we’ve noticed storm clouds on the horizon.  Simply put, an increasing amount of the media we transfer has exceeded its life expectancy, and that’s changing everything. We’re finding ourselves transitioning from transfer work to restoration projects. What that means to our customers is added cost and no guarantees of what can be saved.

For example, most experts agree VHS videotape has a lifespan of 10-30 years. That range depends on the quality of the tape, how it was recorded and stored, and whether it’s endured any physical damage along the way. Although that’s a lot of variables, once they reach a certain age they will begin to fade away, no matter what.

There are several different physical breakdowns that can occur to videotape, but the purpose here is not to explain the science of it all. However, here’s one example of a problem we’ve been dealing with a lot lately called Sticky Shed Syndrome. This is a condition created by the deterioration of the binders that hold the magnetic coating to the plastic backing of a tape.  This breakdown results in the absorption of moisture that makes the tape sticky, rendering it unplayable in advanced stages. 

We have specific techniques and special equipment to combat this issue, and many times we succeed. However, even when successful the extra time and effort involved results in a far greater expense for our customers. 

If you’re wondering about the condition of your own tapes, we don’t recommend dusting off the old family VCR to see if your tapes still play. Like videotapes, many VCRs are beyond their service life unless properly maintained. Therefore, they could damage your tapes even if they still have the ability to play them. We recommend leaving it to a professional with properly maintained equipment to do the evaluation. Many times we get far better results than our customers simply because our VCRs are in top condition.The message is clear. For anyone who means to do this someday, We’re officially sounding the alarm – Please don’t wait any longer!We realize digitizing old videotapes is rarely at the top of anyone’s to do list but your best chance to avoid losing your family’s recordings is to act right away.