Tape · Film · Disc → Digital
Your family’s memories are sitting on formats nothing can play any more.
We convert VHS, camcorder tapes, home movie film, slides and burned DVDs into clean digital files you can actually watch, share with your family, and keep for good. Your originals come back to you.
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Insured handling · Itemised inventory · Nothing leaves our facility
What do you have?
Tell us roughly what’s in the box and we’ll send a fixed price back.
What we convert
If it was a way of recording a memory, we can probably read it.
Most of what comes through the door is a shoebox with four different formats in it. That’s fine — send the lot and we’ll sort it.
VHS & VHS-C
The classic. Weddings, birthdays, the school play. Includes the small camcorder cassettes that needed an adapter.
Hi8 · Video8 · Digital8
The 1990s camcorder era. These are among the most at-risk formats we see, and working decks are getting scarce.
MiniDV
Early digital camcorder tapes. We capture the original digital stream rather than re-recording it through a cable.
Betamax
Still plenty out there. We keep working decks for it, which most high-street shops no longer do.
DVD & burned DVD-R
Home-burned discs were never archival. If yours are from the 2000s, they are exactly the ones worth rescuing now.
8mm · Super 8 · 16mm
Reel film, scanned frame by frame rather than pointed at a screen and filmed — which is what gives you the flicker.
Slides & negatives
Carousels, strips and loose slides, scanned at high resolution with dust and scratch handling.
Prints & albums
Loose prints or whole albums. We can scan without dismantling the album where the pages allow it.
Cassettes & reel-to-reel
Voices are often the thing people miss most. Answering machine tapes, interviews, band practice, all of it.
How it works
Four steps, and you know the price before step three.
Tell us what you have
Use the form or call. A rough count is enough — you don’t need to go through every tape.
Send it or drop it off
We’ll send a prepaid, insured shipping kit, or you can bring the box to us if you’re local.
We log and quote
Everything is itemised and photographed on arrival. You approve a fixed price in writing before any work starts.
Get your memories back
Digital files delivered by download or on a drive, plus your original tapes returned in the same box.
Why now
Tape doesn’t fail all at once. It fades.
Magnetic tape loses signal over time, and the glue holding the coating to the backing breaks down — which is why an old cassette can come out sounding fine one year and squealing the next. Burned DVDs have their own problem: the dye layer degrades, and a disc that reads perfectly in one drive can be unreadable in another.
None of that is a reason to panic. It is a reason not to leave the box in the loft for another decade.
- Playback hardware is the real deadline — working decks are getting harder to find and service.
- Once it’s digital, copies are free. Every sibling can have the whole archive.
- Files play on a phone, a TV or a laptop. A tape plays on a machine you no longer own.
What you actually get back
Standard MP4 video and JPEG images — ordinary formats that will still open in twenty years, not something proprietary that ties you to us.
- One file per tape, named and dated from your labels
- Download link, USB drive, or both
- Your original tapes, discs and film, returned
- We keep a backup for 90 days in case anything goes missing at your end
Pricing
Per item, quoted upfront, nothing hourly.
You approve a fixed total before we start. If a tape turns out to be blank or unplayable, you are not charged for it.
VHS, VHS-C, Hi8, Video8, Digital8, MiniDV, Betamax.
- Up to 2 hours per tape
- Cleaned and inspected first
- Volume pricing over 25 tapes
8mm, Super 8 and 16mm, scanned frame by frame.
- Sprocket-accurate scanning
- Colour and exposure corrected
- Reels measured on arrival
Slides, negatives and prints. Audio quoted per cassette.
- High-resolution scans
- Dust and scratch handling
- Albums quoted per page
Shipping both ways is included on orders over $200. Rush turnaround is available — ask when you get your quote.
Questions
The things people ask before they send us a box.
Will I get my original tapes back?
Yes, always, in the same box they arrived in. We convert them; we don’t keep them.
What if a tape is mouldy, snapped or won’t play?
Tell us and we’ll look at it. A lot of what looks unplayable is recoverable — snapped tape can be spliced, and mould can often be cleaned. If it genuinely can’t be read, you’re not charged for it.
How long does it take?
Most orders go back out within two to three weeks of arriving. Large collections take longer, and we’ll tell you the honest timeline with your quote rather than after you’ve paid.
Do you watch what’s on the tapes?
Only as much as the work requires — checking the picture is stable and the file recorded properly. Everything is treated as private, and we don’t keep copies beyond the 90-day backup window.
Can you put it all on one video?
We can, but we deliver the straight conversions first so nothing is lost. Editing, chaptering and highlight reels are a separate service — worth asking about once you’ve seen what’s on there.
I’m not local. Is mailing safe?
It’s how most of our work arrives. We send a prepaid insured kit with proper packing material, and everything is photographed and itemised the moment it lands.
Get it off the tape while the tape still plays.
A free quote takes about a minute and commits you to nothing.
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