It’s time – video tapes are no longer relevant
Technology is constantly changing and evolving. What was once the norm – like video tapes – are continuously being replaced by new technology that’s smarter, higher-quality and more versatile. Digital format has become the new norm and will be here to stay for quite a while.
Very few retail stores are selling video or cassette tapes anymore. And if they do, it’s very likely that in just a few more years no one at all will be selling them or the devices that play them, such as VCRs.
Individuals are switching to using digital formats to record their own home movies, and video tape is becoming outdated and unusable for professional video producers.
Video tapes deteriorate
Despite the fact that you may have a large collection of video tapes and a device on which to play them, this won’t always be the case. A video tape may appear to look and work just fine, but one day you’ll likely pop it into the VCR and find that it no longer works at all.
On average, a standard video tape has a lifespan of only ten years. This lifespan is just mere age from sitting on a shelf, and is not dependent on the amount of times you watch a video. When you actually use and watch the video, this lifespan is shortened and it can wear out the tape faster.
A lot of skill and attention is needed to properly preserve film or video tape. Finding the means to repair them or replace portions of the video cassette or device on which it is played is currently difficult and will eventually be impossible.
Digital formats offer so much more
For individuals, it means protecting those once-in-a-lifetime moments forever and being able to watch them again and again in the highest quality format available.
For professionals, it means producing work of a far superior quality as well as the higher ease of multiplication and distribution. Reproduction of digital formats also does not result in a loss of quality as it does with video tape.
Video tape is:
• easily damaged, ripped and worn out.
• constantly losing quality just by sitting around.
• degrades as it is watched, rewound and fast-forwarded.
• erasable and can be recorded over accidentally.
• technology from last century.
Digital video is:
• Smaller, easier to handle and much more convenient to store.
• doesn’t lose quality ever – not over time, and not after being watched thousands of times.
• Lasts essentially forever.
• Permanent and cannot be recorded over accidentally.
• The new and standard technology of this century.
By transferring your video tape to digital format, you increase its lifespan indefinitely and make it much easier to share it with those who matter most.