I cleaned out a cabinet a few years ago and found a stack of old Super 8 videos. I’ll never forget the way my Mom’s face lit up after I digitized videos of her late brother Harold Jr.’s wedding. Tragically, he died in a car accident not long after his wedding day.

Memories like that are so precious, but when was the last time you watched family videos? If they’re on VHS, it can be a pain. Even worse, every year that goes by, those tapes degrade a little more.

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Remember when you’d go to Costco and buy DVD movies? Some habits are hard to break and I’m embarrassed to admit I buy a ton of movies on Apple and Amazon. That’s why the news coming out now surprises even the cynical me.

Buying a digital movie isn’t like purchasing a physical copy. The movie maker or distributor can’t come into your home’s DVD player and say, “Sorry, this is not yours to watch anymore.” When you “buy” a digital copy of a movie or show, they can do just that, and poof, you lost the movie and your money. 

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Many of our family images come from the pre-digital era — before we had fancy DSLR cameras and smartphones that capture beautiful photos and videos. But that doesn’t make those memories any less precious.

Some of your most important family memories may live on film, camcorder tape and still photos. Digitizing is the best way to preserve these special memories in danger of being lost or inadvertently destroyed.

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One startling reminder of our technological progress is the fact that every few years, we tend to switch up the ways we enjoy our media at home. I’m sure nearly everyone reading this remembers the days of VHS tapes — of Blockbuster, jammed cassette players, and “Be Kind, Rewind.” Following that, we had the advent of DVD and instant scene changes. Now, we live in the world of Blu Ray, 4K Ultra HD, and for the rest of us, digital downloads.

Well, if you’re a user of the latter, the time has come to leave one media venue behind. UltraViolet has announced that as of July 31st, it’s shuttering its doors for the last time — and it’s taking all the videos it’s storing in the cloud right now with them!

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“I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library.” So said the famed novelist Jorge Luis Borges, and if you love those musty old buildings packed with study carrels and knowledge, you probably share his heavenly sentiment.

Tap or click here for 4 apps to help organize your books, music and movies.

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Over time many of us collect things, with books, music and movies being among them. We don’t have it in us to throw any of it away, but often times they end up on storage boxes or somewhere that is out of sight and out of mind.

But what happens then is you forget what you have. You may feel like you owned a copy of that book or that DVD, but do you really want to go through box after box to check?

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If your most cherished family memories are stored away on old VHS tapes, you need to act now. As time passes, videotapes lose their magnetic signal.

The sharpness, quality and color deteriorate. Worst of all, the tape grows brittle and breaks as it’s played.

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