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| My "Twister" VHS literally became a disaster, as it met up with an untested Magnavox vcr from a recent estate sale. If you pick up one that's used, ALWAYS test them first a few times. |
Even the things that you carefully store. Whether you keep them safe on a shelf or sealed away in a sturdy container, time will inevitably catch up.
This is especially true for a lot of types of media from
video cassettes to vinyl records.
The average age of a VHS cassette these days is at least 20
years old. The last commercial VHS released was in 2006. For decades prior to
that people had been recording moments and memories via camcorders and other
recording devices. Some were recording everything from the nightly news, to
public access channel productions, and everything else they'd find on TV.
I recently began digitizing my own collection of VHS and VHS-C
cassettes, and while it was a really nice experience to see what was
essentially a window back in time to places and people that in some cases are
no longer in my life, it was a bit jarring to see the very evident media degradation that was happening.
I'm a collector of lots of different things,
and have also worked with and around many items requiring preservation and storage in
my professional careers. I like to make things last, and repair them or protect them to the best of my ability and knowledge. I've been that way all my life, as when I was a youth, I made sure I always stored my VHS cassettes carefully. Away from heat, humidity, and dust.
But even under these optimum conditions, the aging of the
magnetic tape is something that begins to fail. On the average, even without regular usage,
the average VHS cassette starts to lose quality at around 10 years of age
consistently around 10 to 20%. Specific aspects like loss or corruption of audio
quality and severe skewing of the video image during playback are some of the
most notable issues that begin to plague the format.
Other factors include the internal workings and construction
of the cassettes themselves. With age the injection molded plastic and other
components can begin to degrade and fail, sometimes to the unfortunate chance
of damaging a VCR in the process.
If video or audio cassettes of any kind are stored in areas
with high moisture, or near magnetic sources such as speakers and close to
older televisions, those factors can further enhance and speed up if not
completely destroy whatever recordings were present on the cassettes. Mold is
also another issue that plagues high humidity exposed tapes, resulting in
completely compromised media with almost no chance of recovery.
Last but not least the simple act of rewinding and
playing tapes too much literally caused them to degrade in generational loss, never
mind the wearing tear on the VCR, IF one has a reliable and working one still in their possession to watch their VHS on.
So if you have memories that you'd like to save to a more stable format before it's too late, please be sure to check out the section on pricing and services that I have available.
If you have any questions, or don't live in the KC Metro Area or Lawrence, Kansas, and would like to utilize my services, drop me a message via the Contact Page.
- Mario, the Artisan Rogue
