- Record on the fastest setting possible (SP vs. LP)- We all want to be economical, but the VHS and VHS-C tapes that are now 10+ years old will tell you to avoid this habit. The quality degrades and archives horribly. Picture and sound are both affected. Use the quickest setting and this will give you the best copy. SP stands for standard play and is the setting you should use on your camcorder. LP stands for long play and should never be used unless it's something that is not important or doesn't need to be perserved.
- Never record over something you no longer want - I've been guilty of this one too. Every time you re-record onto the tape, it creates another layer. It's like deciding to build a new home over a pool that's been filled in with cement. You can't see the pool anymore, but it's still there ready to give you problems in the future. The new layer is less reliable and will most likely give you difficulties when trying to view or capture in digital format. This is true with miniDVs as well. I have many a recording when the record button was accidentally pushed while walking around an amusement park, so I thought I'd just record over that unwanted footage. These new recordings layered over the top have been less clear (both audio and video), and contained inadvertent scrambled data and dropped frames randomly through my "good recordings." Always start with a clean tape and throw away unwanted ones to avoid the temptation to put it into the camcorder.
When trying to transfer your tapes to DVDs, there are many companies that will not accept tapes recorded in LP format. I am still willing to work with these tapes and do my best to get the best capture possible. These recordings, however, will not be of the same quality as those recorded in a single layer SP format.
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