VHS and VHS-C, also S-VHS and S-VHS-C to DVD 

VHS tapes are familiar to us all.  They never gave the best pictures to be honest, and are starting to look very dated today.  Furthermore the tapes degrade with age, and if your precious recordings are left on VHS beyond around 20 years, there is a real risk that the quality will suffer.  In extreme cases, the recordings may be lost forever.  Also VHS is now an obsolescent technology for which players will not be commonly available for much longer.  Time to move your important recordings to DVD!

A few full sized VHS camcorders were sold for a short time, but most VHS camcorders were of the VHS-C (Compact) variety.  The format never really caught on, but in the late 1980's to early 1990's, a few manufacturers sold camcorders of this type.  If your old camcorder was JVC or Panasonic, it would have probably have used the VHS-C format.  A handful of other brands used it for a short time too.  VHS-C camcorders are occasionally still sold today, often as kids toys.  The thing people remember about the VHS-C format is that you could play the tapes in a VHS video recorder using a (sometimes temperamental) adaptor cassette.  

A VHS-C to VHS adaptor VHS-C cassette VHS-C tapes could be played back on a VHS video recorder with an adaptor.

S-VHS, or Super-VHS is a higher quality version of VHS using tapes of the same size.  Several camcorders of this type were sold, and often they gave very good results.  Smaller camcorders could use the S-VHS-C (or Super-VHS-C) type of tape, though very few of these were sold.

I can transfer all of the above types of tape to DVD, using expensive NV-FS88 and NV-FS200 Panasonic S-VHS edit decks.  This gives us HiFi stereo sound, and is connected up using S-Video signals to get the best possible colour performance from S-VHS recordings.

Transfers to DVD:

Basic Menu, £12: Up to 2:30 hours on one DVD, though I can extend this a little if necessary, with top quality pictures and sound.  The menus are limited to just a title, but you get a chapter point every 5 minutes so it is easy to move around the DVD.  Extra copies of these DVDs cost just £3.50 each and are recommended.

Deluxe Menu £18:  Up to 1:30 hours on one DVD, with top quality pictures and sound.  Nice menu icons showing what is on that part of the recording, and if you email me with titles I will put them on the DVD for you too.  I place the chapter breaks at points of interest or new recordings.  These menus look like professionally recorded DVD films.  Extra copies are very cheap, just £2.50 each, and well worth taking.

DVD-ROM £15:  Up to 1:30 hours on one DVD-Rom in top quality MPEG2 video files.  If you have a lot of tapes, VHS to computer hard disk files start from just £7 per hour.

If you have a recording made on equipment from USA or another country which uses a different television system, I can do these too at no extra cost, just let me know.  Not all transfer companies can do this, and even if they can they may not be able to recover the HiFi sound track, but we do it all.  We can even do strange requests like copy to S-VHS in NTSC, almost nothing is beyond us.

Television systems explained
PAL NTSC SECAM
YES YES YES

Transfers to other formats:

Options include transfer to MPEG2 files, DV AVI format files on hard disk for larger quantities of tapes (5 or more), transfer to miniDV or even DVCAM.  Just email me for details.

How to request a VHS/SVHS video transfer.

We have a new and easy order page, just select what kind of tapes you have and supply your details.

If you prefer, you can instead fill out this form (a Word document).  It should answer all of your questions and provides me with all the important details I need, so complete as much of the form as you can and email it back to me.  I will then confirm the price, or best guess at the price, and let you know the address to send the tapes.  Some recordings require particular personal attention, just let me know of any particular requirements.  Usually I transfer to video-DVD but options include transfer to computer file, miniDV tape and more.

If for any reason you get stuck filling out the form, just email me and I'll help you personally.  It's a personal service I offer, not like some of the big video editing houses.  I understand that in many cases you will not be able to tell how much material is on the original recordings.  

If recorded on equipment from another country, see the Television systems explained.

If you want your tapes back after you have the DVD copies (recommended):

Not everyone needs their tapes returned once they have the DVDs, but if you do, please remember to include postage costs. For a single video tape in the UK, this is just £2. For larger quantities, and tapes from outside the UK, I will let you know.  Ideally can you ensure you send the tapes in a package which is sufficiently large and robust for me to use to send back your original tapes. Usually I will send the DVDs to you ahead of returning your tapes, then when you've confirmed you are happy with the DVDs, I will return your tapes. This way I can help you further if necessary - for example you can now see you want a different part of a tape transferred on its own or you want extra copies.

Please read our Terms and Conditions, which form part of the agreement.

Back to the main www.video99.co.uk page.

Also see the video99.co.uk Questions and Answers (FAQ)

TESTIMONIALS  

Some previous testimonials for www.video99.co.uk VHS and S-VHS video transfers

If you have any questions, just email me and I'll reply promptly.   Also see the video99.co.uk Questions and Answers (FAQ)  All material on this web site is copyright www.video99.co.uk and www.colin99.co.uk though trade marks remain with the manufacturers.

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