CJK Digital

05/03/2026

We've just finished another video project. Some of the videos (VHS-C) were nearly 40 years old - we did manage to get decent video off the tapes, but it gets more difficult each year.

It was another learning experience.

1) Those VHS-C to VHS converters - that allow you (in theory) to stick a VHS-C tape in your VHS player - are useless. I had one - it broke without getting anything off even one tape. I got another one - it broke before I even got a tape into it.

2) ... which means the only way to get stuff off a VHS-C tape is to get a VHS-C camcorder and connect it to something.

3) VHS-C camcorders, like VHS recorders, stopped being made new some time ago. You have to get reconditioned ones.

4) Sending deteriorating analogue video through an HDMI converter is a good way of getting a lot of "blue screens" where the clever electronics basically shrugs and says, "I dunno". Better to send the composite image direct to a computer instead.

5) It's still a privilege to be able to enable people to look back into their past. (Even if a lot of the stuff we recorded 30 years ago was actually pretty boring.)

Let us know if we can help you with video tapes - basically £20 each to get data off them - slide scanning, photo scanning or other conversions of old media into digital.

(Picture: fairly expensive and useless piece of plastic and metal)

03/03/2026

We've been having fun with these mugs.

Available at bristolslocalartists.org/shop/PoetTea

Also available on t-shirts, at ... wait for it ...

bristolslocalartists.org/shop/PoetTee

More designs are planned...

27/02/2025

What do you get when you cross a social media influencer with a cat?

05/02/2025

For the first time in a while, I've been looking at getting content off some VHS videos. I have some new toys to play with - videos can now be recorded straight to a computer rather than a memory card - which means I get to see what the video is up to straight away, rather than discovering it stopped working later on. However, what has only changed for the worse is that it's now even longer since anybody made new VHS VCRs, and people's VHS cassettes (and other media) are now even older. And, particularly in the case of magnetic media, even more fragile.

A digitisation service has (since I clicked one of their links early on out of curiosity) started bombarding me with adverts - it would not surprise me if more companies started more assertively offering similar services. It's basically what I offer as well - we can convert (whilst we can continue to source the playback tools!!) VHS, camcorder cassettes, audio cassettes, printed photos and slides to digital. You don't have to go with us (though we are friendly and personal) but if you do have old VHS tapes and you want to preserve the content ...
.. PLEASE DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!!

05/12/2023

The pitch ... in connection with my brother-in-law's photography business.

Preserve your memories: Digitising with CJK Digital. How we can help you bring your old prints, slides, VHS and audio cassettes back to life.

12/03/2022

Been a while since this was updated (over two years!)...

We're still here!

We recently got a 3d printer, and are learning how to get the best out of it. So get in touch if there's something you have in mind.

Also, I'd point out again how hard it is getting to get stuff off of video tapes. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/07/vcr-vhs-production-ends/ - VHS VCRs stopped being made six years ago, and they don't last forever. The cassettes themselves are doing fine - during the pandemic, I was recovering video from tapes that were over 30 years old - but before long, there won't be any means of playing them back. If you don't want the videos lost, you ought to get on and do something about it!!

Declining sales, parts shortage blamed; 750,000 units were sold last year.

18/05/2021

In a slightly unexpected turn of affairs, I've found myself looking at how to move an ecommerce site from Wix to WooCommerce (https://woocommerce.com/).

("Why?" I hear you say. Well, it's to do with reducing costs, increasing flexibility, and integrating Point Of Sale.)

So if you're wondering about eCommerce options and want a chat, feel free to get in touch.

22/01/2021

This is a test, as much as anything.

But if you are interested in having a video like this made, let me know!

13/01/2021

Warning !!!

Do you have precious memories on VHS videos, and you're thinking to yourself, I really must get round to making those digital?

The good news is, VHS tapes generally deteriorate slowly. I'm working with tapes around 30 years old, and aside from the fact that standard TV looks naff expanded onto HDTV, there's plenty to look at and the audio quality remains reasonable. It's certainly good enough to bring back the memories.

The bad news is, the problem is NOT the deterioration of the video cassettes. It's getting increasingly hard to find anything that you can play VHS cassettes on. No new VCRs have been made for nearly a decade. Within VCRs, the assembly that took up the cassette seems to be particularly vulnerable - some good equipment was particularly sensitive about detecting hardware problems in this area, incapacitating the tape part well before the rest of the VCR was a problem.

So if you've got VHS tapes you'd like converting to digital video files, I would recommend you get onto it. CJK Digital offers this as a service: alternatively, if you've got the equipment and the time, I'm happy to tell you how to go about it.

12/11/2020

"CJK Digital have taken all our precious baby videos from mini DV tapes and put them onto an SD card so we can all enjoy watching them. Amazing memories to get back. Fantastic service, thank you so much!" - LB