Digital Creative Blog Articles
Time-Shifted TV Shows
Our policy on VHS with time-shifted broadcast content
By Advent Media, Inc. Webmaster on
Before the days of the DVR, we had the VCR. People would set the timer to catch their favorite TV show and then watch it later.
As a result, you may have boxes of VHS with time-shifted TV shows on them. And that's a problem.
First of all, most people used the SLP (super-slow) tape speed to cram up to 6 hours of content on one tape. The slow speed made awful-looking VHS, and it isn't improved by digitizing.
But most of all, the time-shifted shows are copyrighted content, and while that's legal for personal use, once you've watched them, you're not really allowed to keep them. And we're not legally allowed to digitize them.
Therefore, we will not be transferring time-shifted TV programs.
You may not know what you have, so bring your tapes anyway. Sometimes we find home video recorded over a time-shifted TV show. If we see time-shifted footage, we'll scan the tape to see if any family videos are hidden. We only charge for the screen time we actually capture.
If you want to watch old TV shows on the VHS tape, go on Ebay or a thrift store and grab a VCR.. For best quality, look for the show on YouTube, or buy the DVD set. It'll look a lot better, and you may not have commercials either!