Preserve Your Memories with VHS to DVD Transfer Service at Costco from YesVideo

Recently, my siblings and I helped my mom purge over 60 years of stuff from her garage.  Starting fresh and consolidating, she didn’t need hundreds of boxes full of stuff and it was finally time to get rid of a good chunk of it.  Of course, she kept the truly sentimental stuff that she’s collected over her lifetime, but the rest of it either found a new home or got put in a spot to be sold. 

So, with Christmas coming up, I wasn’t sure what I could do for her that wouldn’t just be in her way and was drawing a blank until I finally came up with the perfect present: YesVideo VHS to DVD transfer service.  Instead of getting her something she doesn’t need or something that will just take up space; I can convert something I know she’s already keeping {home movies on VHS} into something much smaller and easier to enjoy {custom DVDs with navigation}.   

While we were cleaning out her house, I borrowed the box of movies from her – all 30-something pounds of VHS goodness – and then sat down to figure out what was all in there.  It turned out to be quite a bit of recorded MTV and way too many hours of boring grade school basketball games, but also mixed in there were gems such as my sister’s first baby steps.

And, while I went through all these hours of footage I couldn’t help but remember why I despised VHS so much.  Lack of menus and good fast forwarding meant that we sat through hours of junk just to find the gems and had to catalog everything by the tape counter just to remember where on the tape we should start recording.  By the time I got all my videos
organized in stacks, I was more than done with VHS and very ready to convert to DVD for good. 

So, I popped the most important ones in a bag and headed to our local Costco to send them off to YesVideo to transform.  Once at the counter, I found out that all my videos were going to cost a whopping $250 and I needed to make the decision of which ones I wanted to send in.  The problem with my bag o’ tapes was that a lot of them were only partially recorded on and with the YesVideo service you pay per tape at first and then the price is adjusted by the length of the footage.  For me, it was the sheer number of tapes I was dealing with that was the problem, so I decided that I would send only 6 of my VHS stash to start out.

The photo clerk led me over to the YesVideo computer on their desk and I was able to place my own order.  I wasn’t entirely thrilled at the process at first because I had the kiddos with me and you have to enter each set of 2 VHS separately so I thought I could be there quite a while.  But once I got started, it ended up being really easy and I was able to set my own customized DVD themes, add music, and name the videos whatever I wanted as well as set the order of the tapes, which was really nice. 

Then, once I was done getting my order ready and I had my ribbon of stickers to place on the VHS, I simply called over a Costco photo employee and he helped me stick them to the correct places and bag them up for safe shipping.  The process took about 20 minutes total, and that was with waiting in line, learning their computer system, and then to send out the tapes, which is roughly a million times quicker than what it would have taken for me to convert these on my own.   

A few days later I got an email letting me know that my tapes had made it to YesVideo safely with a promise to follow up once they have been shipped back to me with the DVDs.  Once they are completely done with the tapes, they will not only be sending two copies of each {I love that they do two copies automatically}, they will also give me secure online access where I can edit the videos, share them to Facebook and YouTube, and to create even more customized tapes.

If you’re thinking about converting your previous home movies to DVD, now is definitely the time to do it.  With the average home weeding out their VHS and VCRs completely, it’s becoming less and less easy to watch all the old movies, and our childhood memories were previously wasting away in a dilapidated box in the garage. 

Not only are DVDs easier to share both online and off, they are also less prone to damage and a safer way to store all those memories.  Heaven forbid something were to happen to your DVD, you can still access everything on their secure Cloud storage and can burn more as needed, which is a feature I love.  Considering that up until now our old movies were a flooded garage away from being wiped out completely, I want to make sure this newly restored version is safe and practical for sharing, watching, and storing.

While our videos likely won’t make it back before we celebrate with our family, I’m looking forward to hosting a “viewing party” in the new year where we can all sit around and watch our childhood memories together.  I can’t wait to see the look on my mom’s face as she watches the hours of video again with all of her grown children and now her grandchildren.  Even though we weren’t supposed to buy her presents, I feel like the gift of YesVideo is the best present we could all ever get – the gift of priceless memories. 

Want to surprise someone you love with a VHS to DVD transfer from YesVideo but don’t know how?  It’s as simple as getting them a Costco gift card with instructions on where to drop off their tapes.  If you’d prefer to take the tapes yourself it’s a bit trickier since you would have to sneak their old tapes from them, but that would also be a wonderful way to really make someone’s year and create memories together. 

Find out more at CosctoDVD.com.  You can even watch a video that shows the entire process from drop off to burning more discs via the Clud service.

A big thank you to YesVideo for offering a credit for us to try the transfer service, and the remainder was paid for by us.  As always, all opinions are 100% ours.