Converting VHS to digital (part 2)

The most successful strategy is to have a professional transfer your VHS tapes to digital. By professional, I mean someone who has the facility and capability to precision bake tapes, clean them with the skill of a conservation expert, and be someone who has multiple high-end VHS machines that they maintain and clean before each tape is inserted. If they don't have multiple machines then that should disqualify them because in order to be profitable and priced competitively they have to do multiple tapes at once. Be skeptical of any business claiming to do transfers with only one videotape machine.

What else should they have? 

Processing gear to upscale to HD resolution and a process to deinterlace the NTSC video to progressive scan. A great box to do that is called a Teranex. They should be able to convert your tape to a professional digital file and a highly compatible digital file which right now is a mpeg4 H.264 file that will play on any computer and be easily uploaded to a site like YouTube or Vimeo. 

They should offer solutions for on-line storage/access and offer the file(s) on a USB drive. For all that, you should expect to pay between $12 and $25 per tape depending on how many tapes you have transferred and all of the services that are needed. 

What else? The company should be a member of AMIA and possibly other media archive organizations. A good consultant can help you choose the best company.

Is it hard to convert VHS tapes to a digital format?

 

Converting

VHS

(part 1) 

Questions are popping up all over the internet about converting VHS to something easier to use. Questions like: Has anyone done this? What kind of machine do I need? Is it difficult to do? The expectation is that it should be just as easy to convert the tape as it was to record it in the first place. To that end, manufacturers have made many products. Let's take a look and note the links below will expire soon:

There is the Funai [refurbished] for $699.50    https://tinyurl.com/m8u3z4yn

The Philips DVP3345V for $599. on ebay    https://tinyurl.com/bmfj5sjy

The MAGNAVOX DV220MW9 DVD Player VCR Combo on Amazon for $874. or ZV427MG9 for $977.60 with extra features

Some company on Facebook just listed one for about $300. but I suspect the quality is not great.

Should you buy a VCR/DVD recording set up?

No.

Why?    Because DVDs are an obsolete standard and there are many confusing possibilities to sort out. Unless you want to spend hours on an educational "learn more than you ever wanted to learn" journey this approach is full of problems, false assumptions, and a great opportunity to make poor choices. 

Why does this have to be so difficult and confusing?

A little explanation about VHS might help. Inside the VHS cassette, there is magnetic tape. More specifically, magnetic particles suspended on a polyester layer. The tape passes over a spinning disc called a head that aligns those particles so that when the recorded tape moves across a play head the video waveform that is represented by the magnetic particles creates a picture on a TV. Two big problems with VHS tape are:

1. The close proximity of magnetic particles packed together on tape creates cross-talk and degrades picture quality over time.
2. The polyester tape degrades over time and humidity can create a breakdown that sheds bits on the VCR heads in a way that renders the image distorted and noisy. 

Conditions of storage can also facilitate mold or other environmental degradation. So let's say you did buy one of those $$$ boxes above. After converting the first tape, you might notice severely degraded picture quality. Unless you are skilled at cleaning tape heads, this could be a big, time-consuming, and expensive problem. 

How do I upload video off a DVD?

You don't.

You have to rip the MPEG2 VOB files from the DVD and transcode them to a compatible format. For that, you need a computer with a DVD drive. Try finding one of those today. DVD drives have fallen out of favor and have been replaced by USB drives. On top of that, do you really want to learn about MPEG2 and H.264 and all of the various format options and container standards like MKV, MP4, MOV, AVI...? Interested in GOP (iframes, Bframes, Pframes). How about frame rates and progressive vs. interlaced video standards? Unless it is your business to know (or a serious hobby) chances are you don't want to deal with all of that.

What to do...?

Let's start by saying you need to do something. VHS tape degrades to a point where it ultimately is not playable. If your thought is to convert a theater movie library - you would be better off acquiring a digital copy that was made by a professional company/source. VHS from the beginning has been a low-quality medium and professional transfer companies use a much higher quality source to do the transfer. Almost any movie you can think of has already been digitized at high quality. If you want to watch Star Wars or Rear Window you can get a Blu-ray or better yet, get it off of a streaming service. 

If your VHS library is of home movies or "the original and only source" then things become more serious. The "cheapest way" can become the "most expensive" in the blink of an eye. Do-it-yourself is an option only if you want to educate yourself and purchase or rent the appropriate equipment to achieve the goals you want for your archive. Some people are ok being ignorant to what is possible and are happy with less than optimal results. If that is you then log in to YouTube and watch some DIY videos and you will be all set. If you have an extremely limited budget, YouTube can often be a Godsend. If you know how to search, there is a wealth of information on YouTube where people often get results they are happy with. That is really the best measure. If you are happy with what you end up with then nothing else matters.

For those of you committed to doing it the cheapest/easiest way, going on YouTube and searching a good DIY video is your best bet. For those of you looking for something better, I'm writing part 2 on Sunday.

In Storage or On-Line?

Have you read that the thing to do is to digitize your videotapes to lossless FFV1 files and then put them on LTO magnetic tapes to store in a vault? Does that sound about right? It is what others are doing. But for you, perhaps doing that is expensive and obtaining the funding is not particularly easy. 

It is the year 2021 and the keyword for this century is accessibility, specifically online accessibility. The days of warehousing media are being supplanted with a need and desire to repurpose it and make it accessible. Creativity is coming into play where many are discovering ways to monetize their media through licensing, advertising and media repurposed as "information product".

Is it better to preserve or convert an old media archive to an accessible format for viewing and use on modern technology? Preserving an NTSC interlaced 525 line anamorphic image to playback on a cathode ray tube might be useful for an exhibit, but it is not useful to be used with today's technology. Today, media is being deinterlaced and scaled to playback on high-resolution monitors. Preserving it to play on obsolete technology seems ill-advised. 

All content has value and it becomes more valuable when it is accessible. Preservation is important, but it is hard to do when there is no funding to do it. It is time to be creative and prevent the permanent loss of a collection due to degradation. The time left to digitize is passing. Many videotapes can no longer be played. If that makes you anxious, it should. In many cases, the choice is to find a way to monetize the media collection or watch it deteriorate with its only pathway becoming the dumpster.

Vetting a transfer/digitizing company

Luckily there is an organization called The Association of Moving Image Archivists and they have a list of members that are a few steps above the standard run-of-the-mill companies offering digitizing services. Their website is here:

AMIA Website

They have a directory of members here:

AMIA Directory 

If you are trying to vet a company on your own, I suggest starting here. While there are non-member companies that could perform digitization work, unless you have solid references from people you trust I would be very skeptical. 

Another option is to have an independent consultant review your needs and then make recommendations. Of course, I prefer this method because it is something I do. As an independent consultant my only goal is to find the best solution. It is highly likely that any cost incurred paying a consultant is going to be offset by the savings associated with hiring the right company to do the work. The format, age and condition of an archive makes a big difference with regards to the company that will do the best job. Each tape format has its own set of quirks. 

Having a wall of machines with scopes, monitors, and patchbays looks impressive but it isn't the only criteria that should be used when selecting the right company for the job.

Monetizing On-Line Media Access

Some companies and institutions consider the digitization of hundreds or thousands of videotapes as a straight-up expense that is not affordable. The big picture is that under the right circumstances the digitization of a videotape archive can become recurring multiple direct and indirect sources of revenue. A consultant can help put together a business plan that even the most conservative CFO would notice. 

While it might cost over $100,000 to digitize an archive, licensing and royalties can generate revenue over time to cover that expense. Once the expense is covered, it then becomes a recurring revenue stream. When viewed in this light, the business paradigm is the same as any other investment. The opportunity is disappearing but with a small amount of "out-of-the-box" thinking it doesn't have to become a regretful loss. A digitized video file can't be licensed for use if it doesn't exist. 

Licensing is a profitable business. The proof is that there are so many companies engaged in the business. Who are some of the big companies? 

Take a look:    stock.adobe.com/video    ArtGrid.io    FilmPac.com    raw.film    FilmSupply.com    FilmHERO.com      Pond5.com    vimeo.com/stock    pexels.com/videos    shutterstock.com/video    yayimages.com    rocketstock.com    dissolve.com    storyandheart.com    istockphoto.com/footage    wedistill.io    pixabay.com/videos    videezy.com    imp.i308085.net/NrL1v    flickr.com/search    fxo.co/9fAf    motionelements.com    bigstockphoto.com/video/search    storyblocks.com/video    123rf.com/stock-footage    clipstill.com     (and many more...)

The list above demonstrates that a digitized video library can generate revenue and be a business. It doesn't guarantee anything, but the good news is that the internet facilitates searches for niche content. You could go through one of the many companies that offer licensing services, or you could set it up directly. Digitized footage is a product that has value and there are numerous ways to monetize it. 

Where licensing the footage may not be possible, there are other returns for the investment of digitization. For example, reclaimed storage space. Once the footage is properly cataloged and digitized (at the appropriate quality) then the tapes no longer need to be stored and can be recycled. 

Access Is Key

What is the value of a remote office having immediate access to online media? The act of finding and pulling a video from storage and putting it into a machine that may or may not play the tape... the reality is that this rarely happens. The logistics alone make that process prohibitive. Where content is digitized and made available online, a corporate executive could access and watch it on a smartphone while flying in a commercial airliner at 30,000 feet. That can have extraordinary value.

Interview Email

An Open Email To Televisionarchive.org 

**FROM: G. A. Green  4/10/2021

---------------------------------------------

I would like to know more about televisionarchive.org

I am a video archive consultant located in Boston with clients across the country. My mission is advising corporations and media centers regarding best practices for digitization of film, audio, and video archives. I am alarmed by the increasing amount of media that is disintegrating to non-playable condition. The machines to play back the media are steadily going out of service. The technicians who know how to operate the equipment are retiring, have retired, or have passed away. Much of the media that has been digitized is of substandard quality. It reminds me of 72dpi web imagery at computer screen resolution being used for printed publication because the original 600dpi version was no longer available. New technology is steadily making its way to market to upscale, detail enhance, color correct, and more. But this technology works a lot better on content that has been digitized at a level matching the quality of the original properly conserved tape.

I'm confident these issues are not new to you.

Would it be possible to do a zoom interview of someone from your organization for my new blog? https://tapetransfer.blogspot.com

It is challenging to build awareness for this growing problem and I would really appreciate knowing more about your efforts.

I am in the process of vetting engineers and transfer facilities and trying to build a community of professionals who can accelerate the digitization of important media. I've also been exploring a process of shared media logging, commentary and search information databasing. Specifically a video browsing tool for use with a smartphone. It is a similar idea to the leveraged use of Captcha to crowdsource verification of scanned text.

Thank you very much for any information you can provide and also let me know if someone would be willing to do a zoom interview for my blog.

Very kind regards,

G. Almont Green

The Cost

It's not easy to find out exactly how much it will cost to get a videotape archive digitized. That's because there are so many variables that can impact the cost. Armed with the right information about the archive before negotiating a price with a vendor can save a great deal of time, headaches, and unexpected charges. A visual inspection of the tapes can provide a clue, but nothing is completely certain until the tape passes a VTR play head. 

If there are more than a dozen tapes, there are two checklists that should be completed before and during a discussion with a vendor. I recommend using an independent consultant as part of the process who can speak to all of the issues related to cost and help you set the quality standard for digitization.

● Does the tape reel or cassette require repair or preparation?

● Does the tape itself require cleaning, baking, or other conservation methods?

● Is the videotape PAL or NTSC?

● Do the tapes need to be digitized for output to today's technology displays?
(Resolution scaling, de-interlacing, color/dynamic range correction)

● Do you need low-resolution and high-resolution versions?

● Do you require physical digital storage devices?

● How do you want the content curated? 

● Who is actually going to be doing the work (their credentials)?

● What equipment do they have (how many redundant machines)?

● Do they have/use Teranex Standards Converters/Processors? (If not, what are they using?)

● What methods do they use for conservation, cleaning, baking?

● What minimum hourly rate do they use to calculate their quotation?

● Who can be called as a reference?

● Can they provide a scope of work document along with a proposal?

● What is their standard level of quality?

● What guarantees do they provide?

● What surcharges are there?

● What are the options (noise reduction, sound sweetening, de-hum)?

Ballpark $

1" Type C NTSC videotapes ballpark cost falls between $75 and $150 per hour of tape

3/4" U-Matic ballpark cost falls between $0.60 and $2.00 per minute of tape. 

BetaSP ballpark cost falls between $0.30 and $2.00 per minute of tape. 

For an archive with 125 - 200 professional format tapes, a budget of $10,000+ can be appropriate and expected.

If you are thinking that over ten grand is simply out of the question, there are other components to this analysis. For example:

• Can the digitized archive have a value that exceeds the cost of digitization? 
• What about reclaiming the space now used as storage? 
• Is there a possibility to license footage directly or through a licensing entity like Shutterstock?
• What is the true liability of losing the archive for future generations? Who knows how important and valuable the archive will be 100 years from now?

One thing is certain, if the archive ends up in a dumpster then all is lost including the investment made storing it for years.

-G