I’d been searching for one of my old VHS tapes for several years since moving house. Turns out it was in my sister's loft for the best part of 10 years. I had long planned to convert it to digital format for future preservation and convenience.
I've found out the hard way that certain things like VHS cassettes must be stored in room temperature - common sense really. A typical house roof space is exposed to the full range of temperature extremes. Even though it remains dry, it's like storing something outside, which you would never do for items you wanted to keep. Same thing goes for an unheated garden shed or car garage. Still, most of us have done it when storage space is limited. If you do need to then it should be in an airtight container as the minimum. Silica gel sachets to avoid moisture are also a good idea.
I was so pleased and relieved to find it after such a long time. However, when I opened the case, I was shocked to find white mold sitting on the tape.
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| Mold on the VHS tape |
Cleaning
I quickly turned to Google for a solution. It soon became clear this was a problem which needed a careful and considered approach. I found a few YouTube videos which suggested using a video recorder, removing the case and running fast forward while holding cotton wool or microfiber cloth against the tape as it went round.
Other forums warned against cleaning due to the risk of inhaling toxic mold. I decided to set up the video player on my balcony wearing cotton gloves and good quality face mask, for most of the time anyway.
What I thought would be a fairly straightforward process ended up taking lots of time.
The first issue was that the video recorder kept ejecting the tape. It did the same with other tapes I tried too. I started to worry the machine was faulty. However, after replacing the cover and connecting it to the TV it worked fine. That was a relief but frustrating as I couldn’t use it to clean the video tape as shown on YouTube.
Instead I decided to dismantle the VHS cassette itself. Taking it apart wasn’t too difficult but putting it back together was rather more fiddly. Anyway, I was able to squeeze a dry cotton bud under the clear plastic reel cover and wipe away most of the white mold sitting on the tape. In fact it’s better to do that first so the mold doesn’t spread inside the case when using the cleaning method shown in most YouTube videos. These videos show cleaning using a video player first and then taking the tape apart. Doing it the other way around makes more sense though.
By the time I did play the old VHS there was virtually no mold dust to be seen so hopefully no harm done to me or the video player.
I played the video on the television and found the quality was surprisingly good. Having successfully cleaned the tape, I was ready to digitalise it. This proved to be more difficult than I envisaged.
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| VHS tape with cover removed |
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| When dissembling, remember where the tape goes |
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| It was easier to clean with the reel removed |
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| I gently wiped the top of the tape with a dry cotton ear stick |
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| VHS tape after cleaning |
Digitalise
What you need:
- VHS tape
- VHS player
- Capture device e.g. USB 'dongle'
- Software to record
- Correct drivers
I had an old VHS to digital ‘dongle’ capture device which I planned to use. However, this was about 15 years old and I couldn’t find the software CD needed to install the drivers. Eventually I managed to find drivers for a similar device online and that worked. I was able to use PowerDirector 15 to capture the video. Having captured the video in decent quality, I realised there was no audio. Of course the capture process is in ‘real time’ so takes as long as the video takes to play. This is why I never managed to copy many whole VHS tapes when I had my desktop computer because it takes so long.
After spending many hours trying to find a fix, it became apparent this was a hardware issue. For audio input the dongle video capture device used a 3.5 inch phone jack. This was fine years ago when I had a desktop computer with lots of input/output sockets but not my laptop. I didn’t realise that laptops don’t have such audio inputs. The phone jack will only support headphones or microphone so cannot be used as an input for audio capture. One step forward and two steps backward.
Realising there was no viable solution, I went ahead and purchased a new VHS dongle capture device which uses a USB connector instead of the old phone jack. Some of these seem to be very cheap but I opted for something a bit more expensive. Whilst I often relish the challenge of doing something very cheaply or
for no cost which is very satisfying, it can be very time consuming and
frustrating. Sometimes there isn’t an easy fix and you just have to pay
the money.
The software which came with the new USB device did not work. Each time the video playback would get stuck and only show half a frame.
I returned to PowerDirector 15 but that still didn't work with audio despite spending a considerable amount of time trying different options.
I then turned to OBS Studio which worked, producing good quality video and audio.
Sharing on Youtube
This turned out to be yet another learning curve for me. I've never posted any large files such as 4GB on YouTube before. Initially, I didn't want to risk reducing the quality by condensing the size down.
The first issue I encountered was with YouTube copyrite permission. Perhaps I was naive in thinking a somewhat obscure 34 year old VHS tape recording of a music event would be fine. The first version of the video I uploaded was 3.72GB and took about 1 hour. YouTube then flagged up three artists with copywrite. It then gave me just three options which were to mute, trim or replace. For the first artist I decided to go for the option which mutes the singing and somehow retaining the other audio. Anyway, that was a mistake as it took at least 12 hours processing, which I couldn't cancel.
After that I decided to edit the video myself using PowerDirector 15 to mute the artists in question. This took a while and I also had an aspect ration problem. Yes, you can select 4:3 ratio but each time I went to the 'produce' stage for rendering it added a thick black border on all sides, not just top and bottom as expected. Eventually, I worked out what the problem was. The preview window in the editing mode is having a wider black border than visible. What you must do is select the video from the movie board view. In the preview window you will see a selection box. Whilst retaining the aspect by selecting a corning and dragging, make the picture overlap the visible preview window border. You should do this before editing. If you have already split the video into components, each selection will need to have the same visual 'key attributes' added.
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| Rendering with PowerDirector - black border on all sides even when 4:3 aspect has been used in editing |
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| Use the selection handles in the preview window |
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| Drag the corner handles in the preview view window beyond the visible black borders |
To save time uploading to YouTube, decided to condense the file using Handbrake which took the file size down from 3.72GB to 605MB without a noticeable reduction in quality.
I now had an edited video which was a reasonable 605mb ready to upload to YouTube once more.
This time the upload to YouTube was about 25 minutes.
YouTube then flagged up about 5 instances of copyrite this time relating to the melody. Again, I was given the same three options. By this point I cancelled the whole process and deleted the file. It became apparent that by the time I edited the video further, there would be almost no music left in the whole video. Whilst I understand the copyrite issue, it's such a shame that I'm not able to share this historical musical event.
This was a rather disappointing outcome after the amount of effort I'd put into digitalising this old VHS.
After this experience I doubt I'll attempt to upload anything similar to YouTube in future. On the plus side, I now had a decent digital copy to preserve it and make it accessible for future.
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