Spotlight Saturday - Recording Memories

Firstly a very happy new year to you all! I can't believe that I haven't blogged since 16th December! We had such a blast over December and made so many happy memories but basically that meant I didn't have time to blog! However, I have now planned out the next 6 weeks, so I'm back!

Today I thought I'd talk abour recording memories. As you know, I am a very keen scrapbooker and photographer. I also, in the past, used a video camera - a lot. Back in the late 80's and through the 90's video recording was such an important part of my memory keeping and then it just fizzled out. I think it fizzled out because of two things, one was that my children were young adults and just didn't want to be video'd any more and also that recording memories changed with the advent of smart phones. Once we had those we would do a flash recording lasting only a few seconds, up to a minute and then it would be saved on the phone. I have also made sure that these files are saved on my computer as I would hate to lose them.

However, all those memories, starting with our wedding in 1987, Ben being born in 1989, Penny in 1991 and their formative years are mostly on VHS and I cannot watch them. We did buy a VHS to DVD video/DVD player back in the early 2000's and I did transfer some video to DVD. However there is still this lot that needs sorting.

I have gone through all the VHS tapes and worked out what needs transferring. This has involved watching some of the DVD's to find out what was on them - it was wonderful and I need to do this more often. I laughed so much at Ben and Penny aged 6 and 4! Here is a short clip which I recorded off the tv as I was watching and sent to the family on Whatsapp which gave them all a giggle!

Anyway, I have found a store online that does converting to DVD and I have sent off the VHS of our trip to Australia in 2000 to see how they do. If it comes back ok I shall box up the rest and get them transferred and then binge watch them! This is a job I have been meaning to do for about 5 years and this year is the year. After all, if I leave it much longer I am worried that the VHS tapes may degrade to the state where they cannot be copied.

Have you got VHS tapes? Can you watch them or have you had them transferred? Do you do much video recording on your phone? I'd be interested to hear :)