Grounded in how we work
Our guides come from real digitisation work in our Norwich lab, on the same equipment, turnaround and pricing as our service, and we refresh them when those change. Spotted an error? Tell us.
If you married in Britain between about 1985 and the early 2000s, there is a good chance your wedding exists on a single tape, or on one tape and a copy that went to the parents. A videographer handed it over a few weeks after the day, or a relative with a camcorder gave you a copy, and it has lived in the same cupboard ever since. It has also been played more than any other tape you own: at every anniversary, every time a new partner joined the family, every time somebody asked what the dress looked like. That is a problem, because each play wears the tape, and the machine to play it on is now hard to find and harder to trust. Getting the wedding video to digital is the one way to stop the wear.
Most of what follows applies to any old tape, and the complete VHS to digital guide covers every route and what to expect from each. The wedding tape has its own problems, though: it is usually a copy rather than an original, it has been played harder than anything else in the house, and there is often an anniversary attached to it.
What your wedding video probably is
Most British wedding videos from the tape years fall into one of three kinds.
The videographer's copy. If you paid someone to film the day, you were usually given a full-size VHS cassette, often in a printed sleeve with your names on it. From the early 2000s some videographers delivered on DVD instead, so a later wedding may not be on tape at all.
The videographer typically shot on a better tape than VHS, such as S-VHS, Hi8 or later DV, edited it, added titles and music, and copied the finished edit onto VHS for you. That copy is at least one generation below what was shot, and with analogue editing often two. Whether a master survives depends on the videographer, and after twenty or thirty years most of the small businesses that did this work have closed, so the VHS in your cupboard is often the only version left. Our guide to how VHS works and why it was everywhere explains why a copy of a copy looks the way it does.
The guest's camcorder tape. A relative or friend filmed the day on their own camcorder. In the late 1980s and early 1990s that could be a full-size VHS tape from a shoulder-mounted camcorder, or a VHS-C, Video8 or Hi8 cassette from a smaller one. From the late 1990s it is more likely MiniDV or Digital8. They may have handed you the small original, or copied it onto a full-size VHS and kept the original themselves, so it is worth asking what they still have. If you have a small cassette rather than a VHS tape, the camcorder tape guide explains how to identify it and what it needs.
The home recording. Some couples ended up with a tape recorded on a borrowed camcorder and then edited at home, or a VHS that was recorded over an old television programme. These are the tapes with the most variable condition, and the ones most likely to have a few minutes of something else at the start or the end.
Why your wedding video looks worse than it used to
Wedding tapes suffer from two things at once. The first is age. Magnetic tape loses signal slowly from the day it is recorded. The binder that holds the recording onto the tape breaks down faster in a cupboard that is damp in winter and warm in summer, which describes most British cupboards. The timescales are laid out honestly in how long VHS tapes actually last, and a wedding from 1992 is now well into the period where every year costs something.
The second is use. The wedding video is the tape that gets played. Each pass drags the tape across the heads, and if the machine is a tired second-hand VCR, each pass also risks a head clog or a transport fault that creases the tape. The opening few minutes, which get rewound to most, often show the most wear: more noise, more flicker, sometimes a horizontal band that rolls through the picture. None of that is a reason to stop watching it. It is a reason to make a copy that does not wear.
Lost sound is the other common complaint. A tape that plays with picture but no voices, or whose sound cuts in and out during the speeches, is often a playback problem rather than a silent tape. The guide to why a VHS tape loses its sound and what can be recovered explains how to tell the difference.
Wedding video to digital: what it costs and involves
The price is £12 per tape for VHS, VHS-C, Video8, Hi8, Digital8 and MiniDV, whatever the running time. A USB drive is £10 and cloud delivery is £5, and you can have both. You build the quote on our calculator, secure tracked 3-way shipping is added, and you pay once at checkout. Turnaround is typically 2 to 4 weeks from when we receive your media, so if a date matters, send the tape early rather than late.
The tape is logged and photographed when it reaches the lab and you get an email confirming it is safely with us. It is inspected for mould, slack and damage before it is played. Then it is captured in real time on a professional deck with a time base corrector, which steadies the picture and holds the colour in a way a domestic VCR cannot. Someone watches the capture as it runs. The finished MP4 is checked at the start, middle and end before it is signed off. Every step is described in how we digitise your tapes.
The file comes back on a USB drive, as a cloud link, or both, and the original cassette comes home in the same box. The file plays on a phone, television or computer and can be copied for every member of the family at no cost. That is the real difference from the tape: for thirty years the wedding could only be in one house at a time.
Is it safe to post the only copy of your wedding video?
Posting the one tape of your wedding is the part many people hesitate over, and it is reasonable to. Your order includes secure tracked 3-way shipping: a reinforced Media Box comes to you, the tape travels to the lab with a prepaid tracked label, and it comes home the same way with the files. You can use your own packaging and tracked postage instead if you would rather. Put the cassette in its case, pad it so it cannot move, and keep it away from the bottom of the parcel where it would take any knocks. There is a short guide to packing tapes so they travel safely that takes two minutes to read.
If a wedding tape is one of several in a cupboard of family recordings, it is worth sending the lot together rather than one at a time. Sorting a mixed box, and deciding what to do first, is covered in where to start with a box of old home movies.
Turning the wedding video into an anniversary gift
A transferred wedding video is one of the few anniversary presents that cannot be bought in a shop. A silver, pearl or ruby anniversary is the obvious occasion, and a common version is a grown-up child borrowing the tape and playing the file at the party. The tape will be away for the transfer plus the post in each direction, so if it is meant to be a surprise, take it well ahead of the date and have an answer ready for why it is not in the cupboard. Because the file can be copied, each sibling can have one, and the original goes back unharmed. If Christmas is the occasion instead, giving digitised home videos as a Christmas present covers the timing and the order-by date.
When you are ready, the VHS to digital page has the calculator. Add the tape, choose a USB drive, a cloud link or both, and post it. If the wedding is on a camcorder cassette instead, pick that format on the same calculator; VHS-C, Video8, Hi8, Digital8 and MiniDV are all £12.
Frequently Asked Questions
A wedding on VHS, VHS-C, Video8, Hi8, Digital8 or MiniDV is £12 per tape, however long the tape is. A USB drive is £10 and a cloud link is £5, and you can have both. Secure tracked 3-way shipping is added to the quote and you pay once at checkout.
We can make it look as good as the tape still allows. Professional decks with a time base corrector steady the picture and hold the colour, which is usually a clear improvement on how the tape played at home. We cannot add detail that was never on the tape, and a wedding shot on VHS will stay standard definition.
Often, yes. Sound that drops out on a domestic VCR is frequently a tracking or head problem on the machine rather than a silent tape, and a professional deck can read a track that a home player cannot. If the sound was never recorded, or the audio track has physically degraded, there is no honest way to bring it back, and we will tell you.
Yes. Once the wedding is a file it can be copied as many times as you like at no cost. A cloud link can be shared with the whole family, and a USB drive can be duplicated on any computer.
Yes. Your order includes secure tracked 3-way shipping, so the tape is tracked to the lab and tracked home again with the files. It is logged the moment it arrives, so there is a record of it at every stage. If you prefer, you can send it with your own tracked postage instead.
