VHS Tape Shells and Reshelling
Editor’s note: Any products or companies reviewed are based solely on the experiences of the author. No compensation of any form has been given to the author or Pure ImageNation by outside sources for this review.
VHS tapes are fragile. If stored properly they can maintain their quality for, on average, 15-25 years. Higher quality tapes can last for longer before degrading: we recently digitized video tapes that were 30 and 40 years old, which still had excellent quality. But improper storage can ruin even the best-quality tape. Moldy tapes can cause contamination, but we can usually clean that up. However, what can we do when the tape itself breaks?
Now, when we say “tape”, we don’t mean the tape that holds the video and audio. We mean the casing that holds the tape, otherwise known as the shell. If the shell gets damaged, say by being flattened or cracked from being stored horizontally instead of vertically, your VCR might just reject the tape completely. While on the older side, the computers inside VCRs check for a bunch of things in a matter of seconds before starting the tape: does the tape work properly, are things moving as they need to, and can the tape be run safely. If the VCR decides it can’t run the tape safely, it will often just eject your tape or refuse to play it. This is a safety feature, and it’s a good thing, but you still have a tape that doesn’t work. So, how do we fix it at Pure ImageNation? The answer to that is we give the tape a new home, or RESHELL the tape.
First, we’ve got to get the shells. We could get them by ordering blank VHS tapes and just swapping them around, but those tapes were likely made 10-30 years ago and left sitting in a warehouse, so the quality could be an issue, and we’d have to remove the tape and spools from them, so it would be wasteful. A better solution is to just have custom shells made and shipped by another company, VHS Is Life. Their products have been made more recently than standard VHS tapes, fit standard VCRs, and come in a variety of colors. In our experience, products have shipped the next business day, and arrived a day or two after that. We order just the shells, transfer your old tape into their new homes, spools and all, and begin digitizing! Once we’re done we return your digital copies, your tapes and new shells, and dispose of the old, broken shell. If you’re interested in looking up their products, VHS Is Life is available on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. Their Instagram account has responded to our inquiries quickly and accurately.
Reshelling tapes is a service we offer at Pure ImageNation. Giving your tape a new home is a way to recover tapes that may otherwise not work, and to extend the lifespan of your tapes a bit longer so they last until they can be digitized. It can also be useful if mold has appeared in the shell, but not yet reached the tape. If you’re frustrated that your old tapes are no longer running the way they used to, bring them to us and let us see if giving them a new home does the trick.