Oh man...classic mistake. Whenever you say "This is gonna be an easy day - just a few small orders, this is nothing crazy", the universe will perk up and go "Hold my beer and watch this..."
I have really enjoyed these videos and I digitize VHS and DVD for family and would love to get into this as a small thing in my little city. Your videos have been great to watch and I learn quite a bit also. You're doing a great job and I hope you keep growing!
I could do with a cleaning machine. My channel is just for fun. I clean stuff to the best of my ability. But in reality what I get is what I get. Doing it on this level would be pretty cool
Sometimes it is just better just to chuck the cheap, bad housing and transport the reels into another shell just to get the transfer done. It's amazing how many 'important' recordings people have that were recorded on those $2-3 videotapes by no name brands. Certainly doesn't help the situation when it comes to archiving - uphill battles.
You've got the right idea - the little guys - the indies should work together to take down the big guys - at least with an indie outfit like yourself, you know WHO is handling your valuable tapes.
Just finished watching the whole video and gotta say, your attention to detail and troubleshooting efforts when things go south, are second to none! Makes for interesting viewing as well. 😊 Thnanks for posting.
Do you sometimes digitize PAL tapes? What do you do when the resolution is anamorphic? Do you deinterlace and upscale the video or do you digitize into the original resolution and let the customers gear handle deinterlacing? What deinterlacing filter/algorithm do you use?
I'm not from America, but I do everything you say )). The deinterlacing algorithm I prefer is BWDIF 2x. It seemed clearer to me. Previously, I used YADIF 2x, but lately I have noticed that it sometimes “washes” the lines, losing information and the authenticity of the image. Sometimes I scale videos through Lancoz to 720p (I don’t think it’s necessary to go any higher), but I rarely do this because it increases the file size: plus or minus, the original quality is preserved in CRF mode with a value of 10-12, but in higher resolutions the file size becomes more for the same quality values. Many clients find it more convenient to receive material via the cloud, and in this case the file size is critical for me, since the size of the cloud is not infinite. And I don’t delete the material from the cloud until I’m sure that the client has definitely downloaded it. Because of this, I already have 3 TB of space occupied in the cloud. I convert the anamorphic resolution into the appropriate format (4:3 > 16:9). I trim the black bars if the widescreen video was recorded on tape as 4:3.
On this side of the edge of the tape there is a control track with sync pulses (the mono audio track is opposite, on the other edge). Damage to the control track is indicated by a stopped tape counter (however, the video players shown in the video seem to be able to display the counter only on the screen). Such cassettes are the most problematic and the most expensive (I charge an additional fee for the restoration of every minute of such material). There are some VCRs that are better at playing back recordings with control track problems (the video players shown in the video don't hold the picture stable at all, as if they only have two heads to read the video lines). However, even with good VCRs, there is still a problem with the heads cyclically losing synchronization with the recording. The best that can be done so far is to digitize the video in pieces and glue them into one file. But this is VERY long. At the same time, you cannot deal with other orders - this work requires great concentration. P.S. And, yes, this happened to me recently too: they brought me ONE cassette. I think “well, now I’ll quickly digitize it...”. In addition to problems with the control track, the tape itself had interference and signs of frequent viewing (the texture of the tape was worn out). "Quickly digitization" lasted for a couple of months ))).
actually its not considered cheap for the plastic parts, yes its cheaper to make but the real reasons why they dont use metal is due to the metal magnetizing, which degrades the recording. just better design.
What do you do when you run into a tape that squeaks and sporadically gets jammed up on a vcr? How do you keep your machines from not getting broken by said tapes? Or do you have a rotation of vcr units?
I absolutely love your home made rewinder/ cleaner. Any interest in selling me one? We could use one. At this point I clean the tapes by using and open VCR. 😅
For example, in addition to VHS, I deal with reel-to-reel films and magnetic tape. Interestingly, they bring me tapes recorded back in the 70s and they are still readable (although some acetate tapes have lost their high-frequency sound during this time). Working equipment for their reproduction is also still sold. That is, 54 years have passed since the date of recording, and I am still digitizing these materials. VHS lasts somewhere on average 30-40 years. So, as long as the equipment is working, you can continue to digitize. But this niche has a continuation: the fact is that CD/DVD drives are now outdated, and new laptops and PCs do not have a DVD drive. Modern clients aged 20-25 are now copying discs, like the next “dinosaur” of formats, with their children's matinees. And there I do similar work: encoding to MP4, deinterlacing, anamorph, etc. I charge an additional fee to finalize or copy a scratched disc that does not copy normally. Further: now the SSD (which is M2) is growing popular. This indicates the obsolescence of the SATA connector, intended for outdated DVD-RWs and outdating HDDs. Some Lenovo laptops do not even have a SATA connector (there is indeed some kind of SATA cable connector, but you have to buy an adapter on Aliexpress). After some time, they will start bringing HDDs to copy data from them (a lot of data!). By the way, before SATA there was another outdated connector - IDE. You can start the copying service from IDE HDD right now (the main thing is to get an old PC or an external 3.5 box for the HDD). There are clients who bring floppy disks, but this is a VERY cheap service, and there are not many floppy disks. In short, the service of digitization and “data transfer” will exist for a long time and has a future, thanks to the changeability of formats even today.
