How it works
Real time, on a working deck, with someone watching.
Video tape cannot be scanned. It has to be played, at the speed it was recorded, on a deck that reads it properly, and the picture captured as it goes. Everything about how we work follows from that.
What happens to your tapes
1 · Intake
Every tape is logged by hand and tracked under a full chain of custody from the moment it arrives. Walking in involves the fewest handoffs of any delivery method; shipping is routine and tracked the same way.
2 · Inspect
Each cassette is checked before it runs: mould on the tape edge, a sticky binder, a broken or loose leader, a cracked shell. A bad tape in a good deck can damage both, so problems are found first and handled on their own terms.
3 · Capture
The tape is played in real time on maintained, professional-grade equipment and captured as it plays. Tapes that play badly are tried in more than one deck to get the best signal the tape can give. Blank stretches and recorded television are edited out.
4 · Return
Low-compression MP4 files on a flash drive (under 256 GB) or a hard drive, DVDs if you asked for them, and your originals in the same shipment. Converting a tape does not harm it.
Why the deck matters more than the software.
With tape, most of the quality is decided at the moment of playback. A worn head, a drifting transport or the wrong deck for the format loses picture that no amount of processing gets back. That is why we keep working, maintained decks for every format we accept, including Betamax, and why a troublesome tape gets tried in more than one of them.
You never need to send the camcorder, a FireWire cable or an adapter. The tapes alone are enough.
Why the files are large.
Our files are deliberately low-compression. Expect them to need roughly five times the drive space of a heavily compressed mail-in transfer. Tape has little resolution to begin with, and compressing it hard throws away what is left, so we would rather you needed a bigger drive than a second transfer.
If you want DVDs as well, or instead, the tape to DVD page gives an honest account of when each makes sense.
What we cannot do
Commercial copyrighted tapes and programmes recorded off television are not converted. Our standard is NTSC; for tapes recorded overseas in PAL or SECAM, call before shipping so we can confirm handling for your specific tapes.
Turnaround is quoted per order and not promised as a date, because a tape that needs cleaning or several deck attempts adds hours nobody can predict from an intake form. Rush service is available and quoted per order.
Not sure what you are holding?
Send a photo and a rough count. We will tell you what it is and what it would involve, with no obligation.