Hours & Directions

Category: Tips & Tricks

  • Sloppy VHS videotape to DVD conversion by Legacybox and why DDVF is better

    Customer had this VHS tape of her wedding transferred to DVD by Legacybox in May 2020. They omitted roughly 19 minutes from the beginning of the tape (including the wedding ceremony) and left about an hour and 20 minutes of blue screen at the end of the disc. The bitrate used to burn the disc is obviously low because only about half the capacity of the disc was used. Overall sloppy work by Legacybox and this is why you get a better transfer when you use a smaller locally owned company like DDVF. Cheap prices mean lower quality work and you get what you pay for.

  • 1998 Sony Handycam HandyGuide with introduction to Digital Mavica

    Learn some tips & tricks for using your camcorder in 1998. And stay until the end to see the Digital Mavica that records photographs to floppy disks! We digitized this 1998 Video8 cassette to show the equipment and techniques that were available at the time for producing home videos and digital photos. One of our customers still had it in his camera bag with his Sony CCD-TR416 camcorder! Video preservation by DDVF.com for educational purposes.

  • How a sliding record protect tab works on a Sony VHS-C camcorder tape

  • Slow winding Video8 videotape

    We use sunlight (UV) to kill or inactivate mold on a Video8 camcorder tape. We will physically clean the dead mold off the tape surface before digitizing the videotape. Here is the slow winding machine we 3D printed to slowly wind the tape and “unstick” it. We can then deliver the video on DVD and/or as an MP4 file on a USB flash drive. www.ddvf.com

  • How to get tape out of dead VHS-C camcorder

    Saving a VHS-C tape from a “dead” camcorder. Battery is drained on this VHS-C Panasonic but we can use an external power supply to give the camcorder 6 volts to eject the tape. We can then deliver the video on DVD and/or as an MP4 file on a USB flash drive. www.ddvf.com

  • Rescuing VHS-C tape from a VHS adapter with corroded 2001 AA battery

    Early camcorders used the Compact VHS (VHS-C) format. VHS-C has the same width (1/2”) magnetic tape inside as the standard VHS but the put less tape inside (usually 30 minutes instead of 2 hours). VHS-C camcorders came with an adapter so you could insert the tape into a normal VHS VCR to watch your videos. Most adapters use a AA battery to power the motor. They did make some that were manual – you turn the wheel and it moves everything into place. No other camcorder format (Video8, Hi8, Digital 8, MiniDV) had an adapter that would let you play the tape in a VHS VCR – you had to run wires from your camcorder to your TV. Would never work since the magnetic tape inside the cassettes was much narrower than VHS. If you have any of these tapes, bring them by the store and we’ll transfer to DVD and/or MP4 files on a USB flash drive.

  • Killing mold on videotapes with the Ultra Violet Inactivation Chamber (UVIC)

    Using sunlight (UV) to kill or inactivate mold on a Video8 camcorder tape. We will physically clean the dead mold off the tape surface before digitizing the videotape. We can then deliver the video on DVD and/or as an MP4 file on a USB flash drive.

  • Ejecting Video8 tape from a dead Sony CCD-F201 using 6V

    Okay, this is a Sony CCD F201. It’s a 1991 model Video8 camcorder. This is the rest of it here. We’ve taken off this cover cuz we’re trying to get this stuck tape out of here. It’s the customer’s camera. They brought it in. The camera’s completely dead. Hooking up power back to these terminals here doesn’t work. Camera doesn’t turn on at all. So, we’re gonna try and hotwire it a little bit using this motor here to activate the transport. So, we’ve got our lab power supply here set to about five six volts.

    And we’ll try to put a little power into this thing and see if we can get that thing to pop out. So, stand by. Okay. So, I pulled back the tape that covers contacts on this motor and we’re going to put a little bit of voltage on here.

    Maybe have to go the other way. Let’s try this.

    It’s moving.

    There we go. Look at that. Pop the tape right out.

    We’ll rewind this. It’s got a

    Maybe why the tape was stuck cuz this lid’s not really working either. We’ll get this tape fixed up and then we’ll transfer it to she’s getting DVDs and she’s getting a flash drive, MP4s files on the flash drive. So, if you have like an old camera like this and you got a tape in there you need to get out. If you’re not comfortable doing this kind of stuff you work yourself, bring it in. You can see here the little motor and they uh this is Sony manufacturing at the time in 1991. They used a little piece of kind of like cloth electrical tape to cover up those contacts. But that’s your motor that drives the whole transport mechanism and releases the hatch. So, got to get to that and then you can get your stuck tape out without having to uh totally destroy the camera.

  • Saving tape from Panasonic PV-L779D VHS-C camcorder with no power supply

    Okay, we’re here with a customer’s camcorder. They have a VHS-C tape stuck in here. This is a Panasonic VHS-C camera. Takes 6 volts. So, we’re going to try to jump start it with our lab bench power supply. And we have power and eject.

    There you go. This one is saved. Wrestling. So, if you have a tape that’s stuck in the camcorder and you want us to get it out or you just have tapes that you want to get digitized, bring them by the store. We can handle all these tapes over here. VHS-C, VHS, pretty much any format you have. We can put on digitize MP4 files, put them on a thumb drive for you. You can also still make your DVDs. So, bring them by the store if you’re in Delaware or Pennsylvania or Maryland – 1709 Concord Pike or visit online. Visit us online at ddvf.com. You can send us a message through the website or through our Instagram or Facebook. We’ll see you soon. Thanks. It’s up to you to save your family memories.

  • What’s Inside a USB Flash Drive?

    USB Flash Drives are a fast way to transfer large amounts of data, but they are:

    – NOT ARCHIVAL – life expectancy of a few months to a few years due to limited read/write cycles
    – NOT WRITE PROTECTED – can be deleted or formatted, and can spread viruses
    – SMALL – easy to lose, drop, step on, etc.

    You should immediately copy the data to:

    + Your computer’s internal hard drive
    + An external USB hard drive
    + Optical Disc (CD, DVD, Blu-Ray)
    + The Cloud (Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud, etc.)
    + Another flash drive
    + The more places the better!