VHS tapes are an aging media format, yet still beloved by collectors. However, if they've been abandoned for years, they can start to develop mold, which is dangerous to run through a VCR. The Verge's Andru Marino tries to restore his moldy tapes with a new VHS cleaner made by hobbyist Tony Crouch.
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00:00So I was born in the 90s, which means any video that was taken of me as a child
00:06was on analog tape. And if I want to view them, I have to use a VCR. Despite VCR
00:18production ending in 2016, VHS is still being sold and collected and coveted by
00:24collectors today, and of course we all have these home movies from the 80s and
00:2890s that people have these personal attachments to. But we're running out the
00:32clock on the shelf life of a lot of these tapes. VHS has a lifespan of about
00:3625 years, give or take. It's 2025 today, and I think we're well past the
00:42expiration date on this stuff. So it's really important we should be digitizing
00:47these. But before you do, you should look at how the elements have affected this
00:52magnetic tape. If it's been sitting in your basement for years, there's a chance
00:55you could do some serious damage to your VCR or your other VHS tapes. A common
01:00problem, especially for how old VHS tapes are, is this bit of mold that you see
01:05collecting on the outside of the tape. This happens a lot in all different
01:09kinds of analog tape due to improper storage. Here's a few examples from the
01:13VHS subreddit. I found some moldy tapes in my parents' basement, this one being me
01:18and my sister from Christmastime when we were kids. This is an irreplaceable tape.
01:23Like, if this is damaged, it's gone forever. I also have this old recording
01:29of a Rolling Stones concert in 3D that my dad taped off the television, and he
01:35kept these 3D glasses with it too. This one's not too bad, but there is a bunch
01:40of stuff built up here on the reel that I would love to take out. There hasn't
01:45really been an easy or great way to clean moldy VHS tapes. At the height of
01:50VCR technology, VHS wasn't around long enough to get moldy, so there wasn't a
01:55lot of thought around that issue. There are some more professional video
01:59cleaners still around that go for like thousands of dollars. Not really feasible
02:03for someone just digitizing their home movies. And then there's vintage VHS
02:07rewinders that have built-in cleaners that are going for so much money on
02:11eBay, and they're just as old as these moldy VHS tapes. So a lot of collectors
02:16clean their moldy tapes by running it through an old spare VCR. Example here by
02:21Dustin Kramer on YouTube. You take the top off and you play the VHS through the
02:26machine while dragging a little cleaning cloth alongside the tape while it runs
02:30along the guides. I don't really love this method because you can really gunk
02:34up the tape heads on your VCR, and like I said, they don't make VCRs anymore, so
02:39it's a precious commodity. So I've been looking for a VHS cleaning solution for
02:43some time. Other than the fact that my early life was documented on VHS, I do
02:47some amateur archiving and digitizing in my spare time, and perhaps for nostalgic
02:52reasons, I still do love watching that format. So finally last year, a website
02:57called VHS is Life showed off this custom-built machine made specifically
03:02for cleaning moldy VHS tapes. I just finally decided there had to be a better
03:07way. So I sat down and started figuring out and designing what I wanted for
03:13myself for a tool that made it easier to clean mold off of the tapes, and now we
03:19now we have the cleaner. Tony Crouch runs the VHS is Life website and has been
03:24building his VHS cleaners since May 2024. And as soon as I found out about this, I
03:29had to grab one. The machine is 3D printed. It uses just a variety of electronics. They
03:39work pretty simply in the fact that you take the spools out of your shell. You
03:43can place them on the spindles. As you see there, the motors have spindles that
03:47will allow the spool to sit on there that turn it, and then the tape itself
03:53will go around the cleaning pad. There's two posts so that you can clean one side
03:57at a time. There's a directional switch on the front that chooses whether to
04:01make it go forward or backwards, and then there's a speed control to allow you to
04:05adjust the speed to spool it slowly, or once you get comfortable and get the
04:11tape going, you can crank it up where it moves pretty fast. Which is another
04:14advantage over using a VCR is, you know, once you use it enough, you can go
04:20through tapes quite a bit quicker with the the cleaner. Tony also added the
04:25ability for the cleaner to connect to a third-party vacuum or dust collector to
04:30suck up all those particles so it doesn't go into the air or wherever. As
04:34soon as Tony posted the first model of the cleaner, it got a lot of attention
04:38from the VHS collectors community. I've sold over 620 units. I've shipped
04:44to over 15 countries. As of today, I've got a waitlist of about 160 people. After
04:49a bunch of requests from customers, Tony has also started to sell spindles for
04:53other media like Betamax, 8mm video, VHSC, and other types of
04:58analog tape, which has made things significantly more accessible for
05:02archival projects. The Smithsonian Institute, they purchased a unit and they
05:07use it in their video archives. Quite a few universities use it. When I offered
05:11it to the public, I thought, well, I might sell 20 or 30 of them. I just I had no
05:15clue, so it's taken off and it's become a business whether I wanted it to or not.
05:21What's really great about this is Tony keeps the price pretty low. The cleaner
05:25machine and the vacuum attachment cost me only $140 altogether and then
05:29$10 extra for these little Betamax attachments. I don't do it for to pay my
05:35bills. I do it as a what I feel like is a contribution to the VHS community. I just
05:41want to see as many many tapes and home memories, whether it's a Friday the 13th
05:46or your kid's birthday, let's keep it out of the trash and keep it keep it for
05:51years to come.
05:54So how did the cleaner handle my moldy tapes? Okay, now we're ready.
06:16Okay, before we even finish, you can see there's so much mold caked on this side
06:38of the reel and the clean side took most of it out. You can still see a little bit
06:44here or here. Once we go through the other side of tape, it should take it all
06:48out. Before we switch the tape to the opposite side, I just want to clean off
06:53all this mold that collected on the spool.
06:59I'm also gonna clean the inside of the cartridge because you can see there's a
07:03lot of mold spores in there too. For my own tapes, I really only needed to do one
07:09pass on the cleaner for each side. After that, all the mold spores were
07:13completely gone. If your tapes are especially contaminated, you
07:19might need another pass. And just like that, I now feel comfortable popping this
07:23into my VCR.
07:43I'm taking a picture of you. Smile!
08:13How old are you?
08:18What's that?
08:44I ended up pretty happy with the results of the VHS cleaner and it kind
08:52of made me want to go and find moldy tapes on like eBay so I can clean them
08:57up and see what's on them or reach out to any friends who have any kind of
09:02analog tape that needs restoration. It's a gadget that keeps on giving, saving
09:08home movies before it's too late.
09:16This machine is coming at a critical point in the lifespan of VHS and
09:21according to Tony, it has already saved a bunch of families home movies from being
09:25gone for good. Hopefully this also leads to more digitizing of media that has
09:29never been properly archived. Tony says he hopefully can make a version 2 of
09:33this machine that has a bigger surface area to fit larger media formats. But
09:38mold is really only one problem with the decay of VHS tapes. With the way the
09:42technology works, even just playing the tape too many times is gonna wear down
09:46the quality. And like I said, there's no new VCRs anymore and it's becoming more
09:51rare to find one in working order. So though this machine will preserve your
09:55media a little longer, I still do recommend digitizing them as soon as
10:00possible. So why do I still keep my tapes after digitizing? Well, technology
10:06keeps evolving. When I first digitized tapes, I converted these to like 240p on
10:11my old PC. Thankfully I kept them around with some upgraded gear, digitized to
10:16480p. Now with this video scaler, I'm up to 1080p. Hopefully I'll get to 4k at
10:21some point. Maybe eventually there'll be a better way to restore these. But each
10:25time it's another pass through the VCR. So I still want to keep these tapes in
10:30great condition and I certainly don't want to throw them away. But perhaps I'm
10:34just being nostalgic.