00:00So I was born in the 90s, which means any video that was taken of me as a child
00:06was on analog tape. And if I want to view them, I have to use a VCR. Despite VCR
00:18production ending in 2016, VHS is still being sold and collected and coveted by
00:24collectors today, and of course we all have these home movies from the 80s and
00:2890s that people have these personal attachments to. But we're running out the
00:32clock on the shelf life of a lot of these tapes. VHS has a lifespan of about
00:3625 years, give or take. It's 2025 today, and I think we're well past the
00:42expiration date on this stuff. So it's really important we should be digitizing
00:47these. But before you do, you should look at how the elements have affected this
00:52magnetic tape. If it's been sitting in your basement for years, there's a chance
00:55you could do some serious damage to your VCR or your other VHS tapes. A common
01:00problem, especially for how old VHS tapes are, is this bit of mold that you see
01:05collecting on the outside of the tape. This happens a lot in all different
01:09kinds of analog tape due to improper storage. Here's a few examples from the
01:13VHS subreddit. I found some moldy tapes in my parents' basement, this one being me
01:18and my sister from Christmastime when we were kids. This is an irreplaceable tape.
01:23Like, if this is damaged, it's gone forever. I also have this old recording
01:29of a Rolling Stones concert in 3D that my dad taped off the television, and he
01:35kept these 3D glasses with it too. This one's not too bad, but there is a bunch
01:40of stuff built up here on the reel that I would love to take out. There hasn't
01:45really been an easy or great way to clean moldy VHS tapes. At the height of
01:50VCR technology, VHS wasn't around long enough to get moldy, so there wasn't a
01:55lot of thought around that issue. There are some more professional video
01:59cleaners still around that go for like thousands of dollars. Not really feasible
02:03for someone just digitizing their home movies. And then there's vintage VHS
02:07rewinders that have built-in cleaners that are going for so much money on
02:11eBay, and they're just as old as these moldy VHS tapes. So a lot of collectors
02:16clean their moldy tapes by running it through an old spare VCR. Example here by
02:21Dustin Kramer on YouTube. You take the top off and you play the VHS through the
02:26machine while dragging a little cleaning cloth alongside the tape while it runs
02:30along the guides. I don't really love this method because you can really gunk
02:34up the tape heads on your VCR, and like I said, they don't make VCRs anymore, so
02:39it's a precious commodity. So I've been looking for a VHS cleaning solution for
02:43some time. Other than the fact that my early life was documented on VHS, I do
02:47some amateur archiving and digitizing in my spare time, and perhaps for nostalgic
02:52reasons, I still do love watching that format. So finally last year, a website
02:57called VHS is Life showed off this custom-built machine made specifically
03:02for cleaning moldy VHS tapes. I just finally decided there had to be a better
03:07way. So I sat down and started figuring out and designing what I wanted for
03:13myself for a tool that made it easier to clean mold off of the tapes, and now we
03:19now we have the cleaner. Tony Crouch runs the VHS is Life website and has been
03:24building his VHS cleaners since May 2024. And as soon as I found out about this, I
03:29had to grab one. The machine is 3D printed. It uses just a variety of electronics. They
03:39work pretty simply in the fact that you take the spools out of your shell. You
03:43can place them on the spindles. As you see there, the motors have spindles that
03:47will allow the spool to sit on there that turn it, and then the tape itself
03:53will go around the cleaning pad. There's two posts so that you can clean one side
03:57at a time. There's a directional switch on the front that chooses whether to
04:01make it go forward or backwards, and then there's a speed control to allow you to
04:05adjust the speed to spool it slowly, or once you get comfortable and get the
04:11tape going, you can crank it up where it moves pretty fast. Which is another
04:14advantage over using a VCR is, you know, once you use it enough, you can go
04:20through tapes quite a bit quicker with the the cleaner. Tony also added the
04:25ability for the cleaner to connect to a third-party vacuum or dust collector to
04:30suck up all those particles so it doesn't go into the air or wherever. As
04:34soon as Tony posted the first model of the cleaner, it got a lot of attention
04:38from the VHS collectors community. I've sold over 620 units. I've shipped
04:44to over 15 countries. As of today, I've got a waitlist of about 160 people. After
04:49a bunch of requests from customers, Tony has also started to sell spindles for
04:53other media like Betamax, 8mm video, VHSC, and other types of
04:58analog tape, which has made things significantly more accessible for
05:02archival projects. The Smithsonian Institute, they purchased a unit and they
05:07use it in their video archives. Quite a few universities use it. When I offered
05:11it to the public, I thought, well, I might sell 20 or 30 of them. I just I had no
05:15clue, so it's taken off and it's become a business whether I wanted it to or not.
05:21What's really great about this is Tony keeps the price pretty low. The cleaner
05:25machine and the vacuum attachment cost me only $140 altogether and then
05:29$10 extra for these little Betamax attachments. I don't do it for to pay my
05:35bills. I do it as a what I feel like is a contribution to the VHS community. I just
05:41want to see as many many tapes and home memories, whether it's a Friday the 13th
05:46or your kid's birthday, let's keep it out of the trash and keep it keep it for
05:51years to come.
05:54So how did the cleaner handle my moldy tapes? Okay, now we're ready.
06:16Okay, before we even finish, you can see there's so much mold caked on this side
06:38of the reel and the clean side took most of it out. You can still see a little bit
06:44here or here. Once we go through the other side of tape, it should take it all
06:48out. Before we switch the tape to the opposite side, I just want to clean off
06:53all this mold that collected on the spool.
06:59I'm also gonna clean the inside of the cartridge because you can see there's a
07:03lot of mold spores in there too. For my own tapes, I really only needed to do one
07:09pass on the cleaner for each side. After that, all the mold spores were
07:13completely gone. If your tapes are especially contaminated, you
07:19might need another pass. And just like that, I now feel comfortable popping this
07:23into my VCR.
07:43I'm taking a picture of you. Smile!
08:13How old are you?
08:18What's that?
08:44I ended up pretty happy with the results of the VHS cleaner and it kind
08:52of made me want to go and find moldy tapes on like eBay so I can clean them
08:57up and see what's on them or reach out to any friends who have any kind of
09:02analog tape that needs restoration. It's a gadget that keeps on giving, saving
09:08home movies before it's too late.
09:16This machine is coming at a critical point in the lifespan of VHS and
09:21according to Tony, it has already saved a bunch of families home movies from being
09:25gone for good. Hopefully this also leads to more digitizing of media that has
09:29never been properly archived. Tony says he hopefully can make a version 2 of
09:33this machine that has a bigger surface area to fit larger media formats. But
09:38mold is really only one problem with the decay of VHS tapes. With the way the
09:42technology works, even just playing the tape too many times is gonna wear down
09:46the quality. And like I said, there's no new VCRs anymore and it's becoming more
09:51rare to find one in working order. So though this machine will preserve your
09:55media a little longer, I still do recommend digitizing them as soon as
10:00possible. So why do I still keep my tapes after digitizing? Well, technology
10:06keeps evolving. When I first digitized tapes, I converted these to like 240p on
10:11my old PC. Thankfully I kept them around with some upgraded gear, digitized to
10:16480p. Now with this video scaler, I'm up to 1080p. Hopefully I'll get to 4k at
10:21some point. Maybe eventually there'll be a better way to restore these. But each
10:25time it's another pass through the VCR. So I still want to keep these tapes in
10:30great condition and I certainly don't want to throw them away. But perhaps I'm
10:34just being nostalgic.
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