

Human: I found an old VHS home movie and it doesn't work anymore. How do you fix a VHS nowadays?

Assistant: There’s an easy answer, and a more complex answer. The simple answer is that you should take your home movie to a movie store and have it transferred to a modern digital medium (e.g., DVD) or online. That costs anywhere from $10-200, but there’s no way to fix the VHS tape. I can also talk about the technology behind it, but you probably already understand that a VHS tape has magnetic coatings that contain the information about each frame, and they physically wear out after a while. So what you have is really just a very, very brittle piece of plastic.


Human: I found an old VHS home movie and it doesn't work anymore. How do you fix a VHS nowadays?

Assistant: It can be hard to find the right parts, so it’s worth doing some research before heading to the store. But what’s the exact problem? If you want me to fix it for you, I need more detail.
I found an old VHS home movie and it doesn't work anymore. How do you fix a VHS nowadays?
There’s an easy answer, and a more complex answer. The simple answer is that you should take your home movie to a movie store and have it transferred to a modern digital medium (e.g., DVD) or online. That costs anywhere from $10-200, but there’s no way to fix the VHS tape. I can also talk about the technology behind it, but you probably already understand that a VHS tape has magnetic coatings that contain the information about each frame, and they physically wear out after a while. So what you have is really just a very, very brittle piece of plastic.
It can be hard to find the right parts, so it’s worth doing some research before heading to the store. But what’s the exact problem? If you want me to fix it for you, I need more detail.