Digitize Old Home Movies to Keep Your Family’s Past Alive

2. Restoration. Faded or damaged home movies can be repaired automatically with software. Color can be renewed, and parts of a video can be stitched together.

3. Easy duplication. The digitized versions can be copied with the click of a button to make extra backups or share with family members. You can upload the digitized memories to a social media site such as Facebook or use them to create a re-edited movie to watch with family and friends — complete with animated transition sequences, music and narration.

4. Instant cataloging. Using keywords and tagging, you’ll be able to organize and search the new files on a computer, online cloud site, smartphone or tablet.

You can do it yourself if you’re tech savvy

To digitize your own home movies, you’ll need working equipment, such as a Betamax machine, camcorder or videocassette player, to match the tapes you own. More difficult to find is a projector for film stored on 8mm or 16mm reels.

Even if you owned or borrowed working equipment, you risk ripping fragile tapes or reels, especially if you’re dealing with older machines that haven’t been maintained in decades.

The first step is to find your boxes of tapes. Don’t worry if they’re not labeled. Once they’re converted, you can preview the files to properly name them.

Three options to handle it on your own:

1. Connect to a computer. If you still have a working VCR or camcorder, can connect it to your computer using a “middleman” gadget. They’re often called a video capture card, which cost as little as $20.

You plug them into the back of your playback machine. RCA cables are usually included, familiar prongs that are yellow for video, and red and white for left and right audio.

The other end of this gadget has a USB connector you plug into your PC or Mac. Some also have an HDMI cable that plugs into modern TVs.

If these products don’t come with software to record the video on your computer, you’ll need to download an application. Free tools include Open Broadcaster Software (OBS), HandBrake, or VirtualDub.

When you’re done, make sure to copy your new digital file to an external hard drive or cloud site as a backup.

2. Record directly onto memory cards, DVDs. If you don’t own a computer or prefer to bypass it, some gizmos can plug into the back of your aging machine and record directly onto a flash storage device, such as an SD memory card or a USB stick.

Though this method is not as popular as a few years ago, you also can “rip” videotapes onto DVDs using a DVD recorder connected to your tape player.

Once your home movies are stored on flash drives or DVDs, you can insert them into a computer to view or copy them onto an external hard drive. Many TVs have a USB port or can have a DVD player attached, so you may be able to watch them on a big screen.

3. Use your smartphone to create a copy. You can play your old home movie on a projector or television and record it on your phone, but the quality will be significantly degraded. If you go this route, buy or borrow a tripod to stabilize your device instead of holding it while recording.

You can duplicate your smartphone video file by copying it to the cloud or a hard drive or sharing it with a friend.

What to look for in a service that digitizes home movies

Most major cities have services — individuals, local photo and video stores, or chain stores such as Costco, CVS, Walgreens or Walmart — that can digitize old home movies for you. Costco, CVS and Walmart contract with Capture.com to do the work; Walgreens uses iMemories.

Additional online video services operate nationwide, such as FotoBridge, iMemories, Legacybox and ScanMyPhotos, and these companies also can digitize your photographs, negatives and slides.

Before you choose any service, you’ll want to ask about the process:

• Scan or record? Will the film or tape be scanned at the speed and detail it was originally shot? Recording a copy even with the best digital video camera is not as good an option as scanning.
• How will it fit on a screen? If the original film or video was shot with a 4:3 aspect ratio, the proportion of TV screens in the past, how will the service accommodate the 16:9 screen proportions of today? In some instances, you might see black or solid-color pillars on either side of the frame to fit a screen; the same broad bands above and below the frame are called letterboxing. You won’t want the image cropped or digitally stretched to fit the new screen size.
• Raw or retouched? Will the files be digitally enhanced to account for any degrading of the original over time? If so, will you also be able to get a copy of the unretouched digitization?

Video services will likely digitize home movies into popular formats playable on modern machines — .mp4, .mkv or .mov — but Erdman of Media Burn says he’s not a fan of tools to improve the image quality.

“I don’t advise trying to upscale the image from what you get out of a VHS, Hi8, etcetera. Those tapes look like what they look like, and any attempt to try to enhance the colors or resolution is just adding data that’s not there in the original,” he says. “I’m just philosophically opposed to that, and it usually doesn’t look that much better.”

You also should compare prices, read reviews, discuss turnaround time and determine on what media you want receive the digitized videos. Be sure to insure and track your packages if you can’t hand-deliver your home movies to a local service, and make sure the originals that will be returned to you also are insured and tracked.

After the digitization is complete, you’ll usually receive a link to a cloud service where the digitized material will be available for a limited time. In the mail, you’ll get a physical USB thumb drive, DVD or external hard drive returned along with your priceless film and tapes.