Rescuing Old Video Recordings

Do you still have old home movies on video cassettes stored in the loft? I did but now I have them stored safely on my computer, I’m able to watch them on my TV or Phone or Tablet. It’s lovely to share them too with family and friends.

I’m a retired TV and Video Engineer. I was involved in the repair and maintenance of TVs since the late 60s and video recorders since the mid-70s. I progressed from being an engineer to management, and finally training other engineers how to repair and service these pieces of home entertainment equipment. A job I loved but today is not a career that exists. Most modern equipment is super reliable having next to no moving parts to wear out and is also so cheap, it’s easier to replace it, causing excessive e-waste. I hate that and love fixing old things just like they do on TVs ‘The Repair Shop’.

Since retiring, I’ve kept my hands and mind working by repairing all kinds of equipment, cassette decks, radios, amplifiers and phones for friends and family. I’ve also repaired many of the old video recorders from the 80s and 90s before the digital age took over with PVRs and streaming made many of them obsolete. I do this for fun not for profit.

I’ve managed to buy some old VCRs from clearances, Facebook and eBay to repair and make use of in copying old recordings onto computer files before age related degradation makes the old tapes unplayable. It was wonderful to be able to show my family the video of my wife’s first balloon flight, a family wedding back in the late 80s and our grandchildren’s holiday recordings when they were young. I’ve shared them via the web and also created compilation DVD copies for them to keep and treasure.

 

Repairing these old bits of kit has given me great joy and pride in being able to bring them back to life once more. Finding spare parts has often been very difficult, sometimes having to buy several broken devices in order to make one good one out of them. So far, I have repaired several VHS machines, a couple of Video 8 / Hi8 camcorders and a Mini DV camcorder, now all working perfectly. 

 

To copy Video content onto computer, I’ve built a specialist transfer workstation, using top quality video and sound capture cards, together with a top of the range video editing software package as used in major film production houses, to stitch the files together, correct for poor quality recordings and to compile into catalogues for the DVDs. It’s a hobby that keeps me busy in the dark evenings.

If you have an old video tape with a precious recording on it you’d like to rescue and be transferred to digital format, feel free to get in touch and I’ll be happy to help by capturing the recording into digital format that can be played on Smart TVs, Phones, Computers or just shared via the web.

I make a small charge for the copy, just to cover my running costs and can provide a memory stick with the data file on it, typically, a 3hour VHS recording takes up 60GB with minimal compression. I also offer safe storage on an isolated drive for up to two years.

I can also work some wonders using professional video editing software, which can improve the recordings, remove drop-outs and electronically widen old square (4:3) format recordings up to widescreen (16:9), using an anamorphic stretching filter, so the image is wider but the people in it are not, it's a bit complicated but it's a process that's been used by the film industry for years to widen square framed films into widescreen films.

If you have a home movie, perhaps a Wedding or Birthday Celebration, captured on lots of different formats, phones, cameras, camcorders, I can stitch them together, add some nice transitions, titles and credits, even some special effects, to produce a DVD or Blue Ray disk that can be shared with family and friends.

So if I can help with any of this, please do get in touch via the contact form CLICK HERE and I'll advise what I can do for you.

 

#savedvideos #VHS #restoration