Here’s Why You Should Digitise Your Analogue Media Today

Here’s Why You Should Digitise Your Analogue Media Today 
Whenever I’m at my grandma’s house, our favourite thing to do is go through old childhood photos. Each photo we look at has a story behind it, and I can sit with my grandma for hours listening to her tell stories of me and my siblings as we were growing up. Reliving these precious memories together, laughing at silly moments and hearing old stories brings us closer together. However, as I don’t live in the same country as her, the only time I can go through these pictures is when I am visiting Hong Kong. This is why we decided to digitise them.

It’s simple - wherever life takes you, you can always have your favourite memories right in your pocket. Given that physical tape players of many formats are near impossible to find now, how will you watch your old tapes? And carrying around large photo albums or stacks of pictures is just a bit of a nuisance for sharing at a gathering. Having all your media digitised then stored in the cloud, with a service like Google Photos, gives you easy access to your content at all times and allows you to share it with family and friends with a few clicks.

Need more convincing? Read on for more reasons why you should digitise your physical media:

In a city like Hong Kong, where space is extremely limited, digitising your photos can help to save a lot of storage space. With Hong Kong named as the world’s most unaffordable housing market, every square foot counts. Many people have crates of photographs and tapes taking up precious space, so digitising them will help to create extra storage at home.

Though many people do keep their vintage media in commercial storage facilities, this may not always be the best choice. Firstly, once you leave your media there, you won’t be able to access it conveniently. As these facilities have closing times, you won’t be able to get to your media whenever you want. Secondly, it is likely that you will look at your old media a lot less due to it not being readily accessible - digitisation would solve all those issues.

Once your media is digitised and our automated technology has uploaded it to Google Photos, it becomes really easy to organise. Gone are the days of sorting through stacks upon stacks of physical pictures. Google Photos makes it really simple to organise your images into albums according to whatever theme you want.

With the smart search feature, you can type in keywords to find the exact photo you want. For example, if you’re looking for a picture with a dog, just type that into the Google Photos search bar. It will then show all your pictures with dogs, making it very fast to find what you’re looking for, and further “tagging” or labelling of the photos will improve retrieval in the time after that.

If you’re travelling, just starting university, moving to a new city or just want to reminisce on the old days, all you have to do is pull up the Google Photos app and all your memories are there.

There’s no need to carry around heavy albums or piles of photographs – you can access everything via your phone, tablet or laptop and decide which photos you want on display.

Gifting old media that has been digitised is a great way to surprise families, especially parents and grandparents. There are probably numerous photos and videos that they have not seen for years, and being able to see them again will definitely bring back numerous happy memories. 

There are many ways to create meaningful gifts from your digitised photos. It’s really easy to make photo books in a completely new format or slideshows. You can also buy a digital photo frame to display your pictures or even project them onto your smart TV for a gathering. You can also easily share photos with friends and family around the world – allowing everyone to have access to great photos and wonderful memories.

There’s no need to worry about your old media getting damaged any more! Digitising can give you peace of mind, as you now know that your media is protected from any loss or physical damage. If you move homes, there’s a chance that your old family albums may get lost in the process. Or if there’s a typhoon, flood or fire, there may not be a chance to save precious media. Digitising your media allows you to have endless copies, and gets rid of this risk.

Generally, the wear and tear of time will also cause some damage to physical media. Pictures will fade and video tapes actually do have a life expectancy – with a deterioration rate of more than 20% in as little as 10 years. Environmental factors such as light, humidity and temperature can also have an effect on media. (click here to read more on how to store vintage media).

Digitising will protect your media from all of these factors. They will be stored online in a secure system, and you can view them any time you want. Furthermore, digitising photos means that any damage that may have occurred to them can be fixed. Smart software can remove red-eye, watermarks, fading, scratches etc. to make your photo the highest quality it can be.

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Allowing Capture HK to digitise your old media will give you the peace of mind you need when it comes to storing your memories forever. We will help you to preserve your precious moments in high definition, allowing you to access them any time, anywhere you are.