VHS Digital Conversion

The Webster Groves Public Library can to convert your old home movies on VHS or VHS-C tapes into a digital format saved to a DVD or USB drive. A library card is not required and there are no fees for the service aside from a nominal charge for DVDs.

To have materials converted, please be mindful of the following.

  • Drop tapes off at the Reference Desk on the Lower Level. No appointment is necessary.
  • Tapes can be converted either to DVDs or a USB drive. DVDs are available for $0.25 apiece and hold up to 4 hours of video. You can ask us to fit multiple tapes on a DVD or to make separate DVDs for each tape. We can also make multiple copies of DVDs. We do not provide USB drives. When purchasing a USB drive, which can be a “thumb” drive or external hard drive, consider the required storage space. For example, a two hour home video is about 7GB. We use a Windows-based laptop for processing files.
  • We can also convert home movies you already have on DVD to digital files for copying onto your USB drive.
  • The only camcorder cassette tapes (smaller than standard VHS) we convert are VHS-C. We are not able to process 8mm tape cassettes.
  • Please drop off 10 items at a time. You may bring more when you pick up your completed materials.
  • This service is provided on a first come, first served basis. We cannot guarantee a specific completion date. In essence, the process takes as long as it does to play the videos.
  • Videos that are subject to copyright or otherwise protected from reproduction (e.g., TV shows and movies) should not be submitted for conversion. We understand that some tapes may include a mix of home videos and copyrighted material. In such a case we will review the entire tape and only convert the home video portions. Unfortunately, we cannot accept special requests to convert copyrighted video of any kind.

VHS tapes can be decades old, fragile and prone to breaking. Please understand that we cannot be responsible for fixing tapes that break during the conversion process. Also, the video conversion quality is only as good as that of the original tapes, which can degrade over time.

Feel free to call the Reference Desk at 314-961-7277 with questions.