Many of us have fully embraced the technological shift that has taken place in the past few years and have become fully digital. With the advent of the mp3 and jpeg files, and digital cameras, a large amount of the population has abandoned the use of physical media and has instead partaken in digitizing everything. Digital media is just more efficient, convenient and more easily accessible than physical media; there is no denying that fact
However, even with the large acceptance of digitizing our media, many of our most precious family memories are captured on older types of recording devices, namely the VHS and MiniDV tapes. The worst part about having a large amount of our precious memories captured on tapes is that the tapes are oftentimes very temperamental, tend to break, and eventually lose their ability to play. At the initial inspection, all hope seems to be lost and your memories appear to be lost forever. Luckily, looks can often be deceiving and there is a simple way to fix the most common problem with broken tapes. The following is a quick step-by-step guide to fixing your tapes that will not play:
Before starting your repair you are going to need the following: scissors, adhesive tape, Phillips screwdriver and a blank VHS (or MiniDV) tape.
1) Carefully take apart both the tape that is damaged as well as the new blank one.
Peel off the label found at the front of the tape. Unscrew the five screws found at the bottom of the tape with your Phillips screwdriver and remove the top half of the tape.
2) Find the magnetic black tape and slowly take out it of the reels inside of your blank tape. Make sure to cut out any of the black tape that is damaged (it should be obvious).
3) Now switch the take-up reel (The take-up reel actually pulls the tape through the system and holds the film or audio tape that has already been played) that is inside of the blank tape with the take-up reel found in the damaged one. If done correctly, each tape should have a part of your video.
4) Using the adhesive tape, connect the end of the black tapes found in each VHS cassette.
5) Put both of the tapes back together and make sure that both halves are fully attached when you put them bottom-side up. Using your Phillips screwdriver, put the screws back in.
The two tapes now have the ability to play your original video and your memories are intact.
I hope this guide was useful in helping to restore your old tapes and most importantly keeping your precious memories safe. This same process can be used interchangeably for both VHS cassettes and MiniDV tapes. If for some reason this process fails, send your tapes our way, and one of our skilled video technicians can repair your VHS or MiniDV tapes before we digitize them and preserve your memories as vividly as you remember them!
Tags: digital, digital camera, digital media, digitize, digitizing, MiniDV, physical media, VHS
