I'm in charge of digitizing 20 years of our family's home videos and I'm not sure it's a good idea.
By @gusfr · Nostalgia
My wife wants to convert our massive box of old VHS and Hi8 tapes to digital files to 'preserve the memories.' I'm looking at the cost and the time commitment and wondering if some things are better left as fuzzy memories instead of high-res files.
The full story
We have a giant storage tub in the attic with at least 50 tapes from the late 80s through the early 2000s—a whole museum of dead media formats. My wife's logic is sound on the surface: preserve our family history, make it easy to share with our kids and relatives, and save them before the magnetic tape degrades to dust. The problem is the execution. Mail-in services charge around $25 per tape. For our collection, we're looking at a bill of over $1,200. The alternative is I buy a VCR and a digital capture card and do it myself. That option saves money but costs me dozens, if not hundreds, of hours capturing footage and editing out the hours where my dad forgot to stop recording and filmed the carpet. Here’s the core of my hesitation: are the actual videos worth the effort? I have this perfect memory of my 6th birthday, a classic 90s backyard party. On tape, is it a 2-hour epic with 10 minutes of cake and 110 minutes of shaky shots of the lawn and my uncle telling bad jokes? I’m concerned that converting these memories to crystal-clear digital files will just ruin the nostalgia. The 'idea' of these memories might be more valuable than the boring reality on the tapes. My wife says I'm being too cynical and that when the tapes are finally unplayable, I'll regret not acting. She has a point. But I can't shake the feeling this is a massive, expensive project to just confirm that most of our home movies were actually pretty boring. I need a logical path forward.
How people voted
- Facts — 29% (39 votes)
- Depends — 39% (53 votes)
- No Way — 32% (43 votes)
Readers are split: “Depends” leads with 39% — 135 votes and 5 comments so far.
What people are saying
@finnactually — This isn't about the tapes, it's classic avoidance because you're scared the reality won't live up to your idealized memories.
@finnhm — Definitely spend the $1200 to find out your childhood was mostly out-of-focus lawn shots.
@vincelately — Why not just do 1 or 2 tapes and see how you feel?
@tess — I absolutely agree with your wife on this one - those tapes are priceless! You'll be so glad you have them later.
@welpok — lmao
Keep reading
- Remember when you could just mysteriously disappear online?
- Remember trading snacks at the lunch table in school?
- I still think about the Scholastic Book Fair like it was the Met Gala.
- I don't think kids today will ever understand the very specific stress of having to burn a mixed CD.
- My kids don't understand the magic of a Saturday morning cartoon block.