Why You Should Digitize VHS Tapes Before It's Too Late
By Jennifer Wise • July 15, 2026
There are many heartwarming stories about FOREVER Digitization. Stories about hearing your mom's voice again after sending in an old audio cassette to be digitized. Stories about grown siblings sitting down together to watch videos from when they were babies and toddlers after those VHS tapes have been digitized.
Some of those stories are mine, but this particular story is a cautionary tale.
The moral of my story is simple: We don't have all the time in the world to digitize memories trapped on outdated media. It really can be too late.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, I recorded our family videos on a camcorder using Hi8 tapes. Then I copied those tapes to VHS so we could watch them on our VCR. When it became clear that VHS was being replaced by DVDs, I bought a VHS/DVD combination player and dutifully copied all those VHS tapes to DVD. Or at least, I tried. It was time-consuming, tedious work.
Then we moved across the country.
I still had about six or seven VHS tapes on my "to-do" list when I discovered that my VHS/DVD combination player had stopped working. My regular habit of transferring those old memories came to a halt, and by then those combination players weren't being sold anymore.
I was stuck, so those VHS tapes sat on my project desk for eight years.
As it turned out, that desk in my new house received a lot of direct sunlight – a detail I didn’t realize would matter until much later. When I was introduced to FOREVER in 2021, I was thrilled to finally have an answer to the question, "What do I do with these VHS tapes?" Not only did FOREVER Digitization have technology I didn't have, but they also had the time I didn't have.
I sent in all those VHS tapes, along with several other items that needed digitizing, including slides my dad had taken in the 1970s. I was delighted with the results. It's such a gift to have easy access to these family memories and to know they’ll be preserved for generations with FOREVER Storage.
But I also discovered that one of those VHS tapes had been damaged - probably because it was more than 20 years old and had spent eight years sitting in direct sunlight.
Excerpt From Jennifer's VHS Tape
It's easy to see that the video quality has been distorted, but so is the audio. You hear him kiss the baby before you see him do it, and the clear audio at the end happens before the video catches up.
I learned the hard way that VHS tapes do not last forever. In fact, they don't last very long at all. I learned that they gradually deteriorate and lose their magnetic signal over time, affecting both video and audio quality. After doing a little more research, I discovered that VHS tapes typically have a shelf life of only 10-20 years.
By the time I had this tape digitized, it was already too late.
It does take some time and money to preserve our family stories that are trapped on outdated media. That's true. But I can tell you from experience that it's worth every bit of effort.
We call FOREVER's service “digitization,” but sometimes I wonder if we should call it "heartbreak avoidance" instead.
I hope no one experiences what I did, but anyone with aging VHS tapes who waits much longer is taking a real risk.
Thankfully, my story has a happy ending.
I was heartbroken that so much of that VHS tape had been damaged. It contained my daughter's first days and months of life! Those moments can never be recreated. They can never be replaced.
Then, after agonizing over it for about a month, I remembered that I still had the original Hi8 tape!
I sent that tape to FOREVER for digitization, and because it had been stored much more carefully, it was in far better condition. I finally received the beautiful recordings I had been hoping for. They are absolutely priceless.
But I don't know when it would have been too late for the Hi8, too.
There is no time like the present.