Organizing and Preserving Old Family Movies: 4 Easy Steps
Ever since the first consumer camcorder was released in 1983, families have taken home videos of everything from birthday parties, to holiday celebrations, and everything in between. Unfortunately, over time, these movies can get lost, deteriorate, or get damaged.
These feature a ton of precious family memories, and you certainly don’t want to lose them. As a result, you need to do all you can to keep these movies (and their contents) in good shape. In an effort to help, this article is going to go over some tips to organize and preserve old family movies.
Digitize Them
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One of the best ways to keep your old home movies safe and preserved is to digitize them. No matter how well you care for an old film, it will eventually deteriorate and become unwatchable.
If you digitize them, they can exist on your computer forever, and be easy to watch anytime you want, and be sent in seconds via email.
While this can be done on your own, it can be a very involved process, and requires a lot of tools that you may not have. Instead, it is often better to put your trust in a company that offers the 16mm to digital transfer that you need.
They will take your films, and digitize them flawlessly, and then give you digital copies that won’t deteriorate or become damaged over time.
Store Them the Right Way
While digitizing is great, you may want to keep the original copies of your tapes and may simply prefer to keep things physical. If this is the case, you need to learn how to store your old home movies in the best way possible.
They should be stored in a place that is away from direct light, is at a moderate temperature, and a place that doesn’t get a lot of moisture. The tapes should be protected from dust and other debris, as well.
High humidity is also generally bad, and the tapes should not be kept on the floor. Also, video tapes should be kept vertically and side by side, if at all possible. Doing all you can to protect your tapes can keep them in good shape for as long as possible.
Handle Them With Care
Next, you want to ensure you are handling these films with a ton of care. Whether you need to move them, or simply bring them out to show people or play, you want to be careful. Watch out not to drop them, not accidentally step on them, and generally be aware of where they are. These are prized family possessions and memories, and should be treated as such.
Always ensure you have clean hands, and be careful to avoid getting dirt and other debris on the tapes.
While it can be cleaned off, you need to be careful as cleaning them can lead to damage at times.
If you do need to clean the tapes or film for one reason or another, do it very gently, and only using products or materials that are deemed safe.
Keep Everything Labeled Well
A big part of organizing movies is labeling them. You want to know which tape has what on it, and this is made much easier if you simply write on each tape. You could right the event, the year, and anything that can help you distinguish one tape from another.
This helps make it easier to find the tape you are looking for, and also allows you to store the tapes in a way that makes sense and is clear. The last thing you want is to end up misplacing or forgetting about certain movies.
Worse yet, if you are cleaning out your basement or storage room, you may end up throwing out unlabeled tapes that might have held some incredibly important memories on them.
By keeping these tips in mind, you can make sure you are able to organize and preserve your old family memories.
