Describe your tapes
Fill in the form: number of cassettes, type, contents, condition. It takes 2–3 minutes.
Lossless copies of VHS and S-VHS tapes made in a studio-grade signal chain: JVC and Panasonic decks with TBC correction, uncompressed capture, and digital restoration of picture and sound — frame by frame.
All the engineering stays on our side. You go through a simple, predictable process — from enquiry to finished files.
Fill in the form: number of cassettes, type, contents, condition. It takes 2–3 minutes.
You will receive an individual quote with a precise scope of work and deadline. The price is binding.
By courier, parcel locker or in person. Safe packing instructions come with the quote.
Files via a secure link or on physical media; your tapes come back to you. We keep a backup for 30 days.
Confidentiality: we treat your recordings as private material. They are viewed only by the person performing the digitization and quality control, never shared with anyone, and permanently deleted from our drives 30 days after delivery.
Most digitization services plug any VCR into a basic USB grabber and save a heavily compressed file. We build a complete, controlled signal chain — the kind used for archiving broadcast material — and only at its very end is your file created.
Every element of the chain has one job: to extract the maximum information from the tape and lose nothing along the way. Restoration is performed only on a lossless digital copy, so the original signal remains untouched and we can always return to it.
In short: your tape is played back on the best possible equipment, recorded with zero quality loss, and only then digitally enhanced. The result: a picture that is more stable, cleaner and better-coloured than the original cassette ever looked on a TV.
Studio-grade JVC and Panasonic S-VHS players with built-in line TBC and noise reduction. Their heads and electronics read more detail off the tape than any consumer VCR, and the line TBC stabilises every line of the picture already at playback.
A full-frame Time Base Corrector — a device that rebuilds the video signal frame by frame and removes timing fluctuations. It is what keeps the picture from floating, wobbling or tearing on damaged sections of tape.
Broadcast-class ATI capture cards in a dedicated machine optimised for real-time recording — no dropped frames, no colour errors.
HuffYUV — a lossless codec. The file is large, but it contains exactly what came out of the analogue chain, with no lossy compression. It is our digital "negative", from which every further version is made.
AviSynth with our own 12-phase restoration pipeline, tuned individually for every tape: colour-layer repair, media-damage removal, reference-grade deinterlacing that preserves original pixels, motion-compensated denoising and controlled sharpening. Full phase-by-phase description in the Workflow section.
A studio-grade restoration chain in the iZotope RX class: spectral analysis and editing, adaptive noise reduction that learns the profile of each tape, mains-hum removal including its harmonics, precise click and crackle repair, speech-band tonal correction, and dynamics control with loudness normalisation to the EBU R128 broadcast standard. The result: conversations and memories sound clean and are simply easy to hear.
Professional MainConcept encoders — from the world leader in video codec technology — in H.264 and H.265, with settings chosen to preserve maximum quality at a sensible file size. For archival and editing purposes we also deliver ProRes and the untouched lossless master.
Four phases, always in the same order: first we extract the maximum signal from the tape, then we record it losslessly, and only at the end — on a digital copy — do we enhance picture and sound. The original capture remains untouched.
We assess the condition of the cassette: shell, guides and tape are checked for mould, splices and damage. Where needed, the tape is cleaned or repaired before its first playback — protecting both the recording and the heads.
The tape goes into a studio JVC or Panasonic player with line TBC and noise reduction engaged. Already at this stage the picture is sharper and more stable than on any consumer VCR.
The full-frame Time Base Corrector removes the timing fluctuations (jitter) that make tape footage float and shake. It also provides rock-solid sync for the capture card — no torn recordings on damaged sections.
The ATI card in a dedicated machine records the signal to a lossless HuffYUV 4:2:2 file in real time. This creates the digital master — the starting point for all restoration and an insurance policy for the future.
A copy of the master passes through our own 12-phase restoration pipeline: colour-layer repair, tape-damage removal, reference-grade deinterlacing, motion-compensated denoising and controlled sharpening. Every phase is described in detail below.
The audio track goes through a complete studio restoration chain: spectral analysis and editing, adaptive noise reduction that learns the profile of the tape, mains-hum removal including its harmonics, click and crackle repair, speech-band tonal correction, and dynamics control with loudness normalisation to EBU R128. Dialogue intelligibility remains the priority — the heart of most home recordings.
The finished material is encoded with professional MainConcept encoders — from the world leader in codec technology — to H.264 or H.265, with quality-first settings. On request we also deliver ProRes for editing and the untouched lossless master.
Every file is reviewed under a fixed procedure and frames are compared before and after restoration against the source material. Only after passing verification does the recording go out for delivery.
Files are delivered via a secure link, on a USB drive or on your own disk. We keep a backup copy on separate media for 30 days after you confirm receipt — only then is it permanently deleted.
This is exactly the pipeline every recording ordered with full restoration passes through. We keep the technical terms for the curious — and explain every phase in plain language too.
The lossless HuffYUV file (4:2:2) enters the pipeline with its field order correctly declared — every subsequent operation on interlaced material depends on it.
Conversion to a planar format in which filters operate on luminance and colour independently — with no rounding that steals detail.
Brightness, contrast and saturation corrected to the 16–235 broadcast range. Deliberately without automatic white balance, which causes colour "pumping" between shots on VHS.
Chroma noise reduction across the full frame and precise alignment of the colour layer to luminance edges. The effect: colours stop "drifting" away from outlines.
White streaks, tears and dropouts are repaired separately in odd and even fields — keeping the interlace structure intact before deinterlacing.
50i converted to fluid 50 frames per second. The algorithm matches its output to the source and preserves original pixels wherever possible, while controlled grain restoration keeps a natural texture instead of a "waxy" look.
A motion-analysis engine tracks every part of the image with sub-pixel accuracy and averages noise along motion trajectories. Scene-cut detection prevents "ghosting" across edits.
Temporal analysis compares each frame with its neighbours and catches the isolated defects that survived earlier stages.
Sharpening runs on an image supersampled to 150%, with an overshoot limiter against white halos and temporal smoothing so the grain doesn't "dance" after sharpening.
The picture returns to 4:2:2 — the format the encoding chain expects, with no additional colour loss.
We remove the head-switching noise band at the bottom edge and analogue junk from the borders, centre the 4:3 image and scale it carefully to the target resolution.
The pipeline is computed in parallel on every core of the workstation and fed straight to the encoder — no intermediate lossy saves.
Important: the parameters of every phase — denoising strength, how much grain is kept, repair thresholds — are tuned individually for each tape. A wedding filmed in a dark hall needs different settings than a sunny outdoor scene; there is no single "auto" preset that suits every cassette.
No filter can recover information that was never read off the tape. Studio S-VHS heads and a TBC chain extract the maximum from the media — which is why we start with hardware, not software.
The line TBC in the deck straightens individual lines; the external TBC stabilises whole frames. Together they eliminate the jitter, wobble and sync tearing no software can fix.
HuffYUV throws away not a single bit of the picture. When better restoration algorithms appear in ten years, your master will still be a full-value source — a file from a cheap grabber will not.
We work only on copies of the master. Every filter can be undone, changed or re-tuned — and the original capture stays untouched.
VHS material is interlaced. Simple deinterlacing loses half the resolution; our algorithm analyses motion between fields and reconstructs a fluid, full picture — 50 frames per second.
We encode with professional MainConcept codecs — the technology used in broadcast and post-production. Files look great on a TV and a phone, take up sensible space, and will stay playable for years.
Send us a short description of your recordings — you will receive an individual quote within 24 hours.
We do not publish a fixed price list, because an honest price depends on what is actually on the tape: recording length, media condition and the scope of restoration. Instead, within 24 hours you receive a specific, binding individual quote — with a precise description of the work and a delivery date.
A faithful transfer of the recording through the full dual-TBC chain, with basic level correction and audio normalisation. An MP4 ready for any TV or phone.
Our own 12-phase AviSynth pipeline: colour repair, damage removal, reference-grade deinterlacing, motion-compensated denoising and sharpening — plus studio audio restoration with spectral editing.
Lossless HuffYUV and/or ProRes for editing, plus a copy on a second medium — for collections meant to last decades.
Mould, snapped tape, a damaged shell — we bring the cassette back to a state where it can be played safely. Always after a separate quote and your approval.
Careful upscaling with filters chosen for tape material — no artificial, "plastic" look. We will give you honest advice on whether it makes sense for your recording.
Larger family and business archives are quoted on individual terms, with files delivered in scheduled batches.
Additional work — such as repairing a damaged tape — is only ever carried out with your prior approval.
Request a free quoteThe recordings that come home to their families speak for us best — and so do their owners.
"My parents' 1993 wedding video looks better than it ever has on our TV. The picture stopped shaking, and you can finally understand the voices."
"I ordered a lossless master for a documentary project. The HuffYUV and ProRes files were prepared exactly the way it should be done."
"One of the cassettes was mouldy and I was afraid the recording was lost. The tape was cleaned and my daughter's First Communion film was saved in full."
Briefly describe your tapes: how many there are, what type (VHS / VHS-C / S-VHS), roughly what they contain and what condition they are in. We will reply with a quote and safe shipping instructions.
AMG Media
ul. Przyrodnicza 2
05-126 Michałów-Grabina
Office hours: Mon–Fri 9:00–17:00.
In-person drop-off by prior appointment.
Data controller: AMG Media, ul. Przyrodnicza 2, 05-126 Michałów-Grabina, Poland, VAT ID (NIP): 8542123967, e-mail: office@amgmedia.pl.
You have the right to access, rectify and erase your data, to restrict its processing, to data portability and to object, as well as to lodge a complaint with the President of the Polish Data Protection Office (UODO). Providing data is voluntary but necessary to carry out the order. We do not transfer data outside the EEA and do not use automated decision-making.
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