I'd called many Twin Cities film transfer businesses in my search for a company to transfer my family's treasured 8mm and Super 8 movies to digital format. The search ended when I spoke to Thor at Saving Tape. I was interested in obtaining the uncompressed digital files so that I could create my own movie with the highest possible image quality. Unlike the other businesses I had called, Saving Tape was happy to provide me exactly what I wanted without trying to talk me out of doing the editing myself. When I stopped by to further discuss my project, I was pleasantly surprised by the comfortable atmosphere and the absence of sales pressure. I felt as if I was sitting in a friend's living room. While there, I had the opportunity to observe the staff at work and it became clear to me that film transfer is more than a job for these guys...it's a labor of love. All this, and the cost was less than the places I talked to! The conversion took just a few days and results were tremendous. My family will be so pleased with the DVD full of memories they'll receive as gifts this Christmas. I give Saving Tape my most enthusiastic recommendation for transfer of film to digital format. Based on my experience, I'd bet that they would do a great job on other media as well. Jeff B. read more

I went to Saving Tape to get my parents' home video converted to DVD as a Christmas present. I didn't know what to expect when I walked in to the studio, because I didn't realize there were businesses that specialized in video conversion. Saving Tape is a quaint mom & pop shop where I was able sit down and discuss my project and have a genuine conversation. Thor, the owner, helped me order my vhs tapes chronologically. He told me I was welcome to call and check up on my project the following week. I was surprised to find that Thor had thoughtfully labeled each DVD, which meant he sat down and deciphered all the poorly scribbled labels from each home video. He also eliminated any old television portions or snowy segments at the beginnings and ends. I gave Saving Tape 5 stars because I want to support a small business located in my neighborhood, South Minneapolis. I think making a business out of transferring vhs tapes to DVD is a novel entrepreneurial idea. I had one criticism - my DVD's came in a case, which included a cheesy "Saving Tape Media Conversion" label. Since I was giving these DVD's to my parents as a Christmas present, I flipped the sleeve over and decorated it. read more

Years ago, when it was the latest thing, I took my dad's Super 8 film home movies to a big camera and video exchange store and had 8 VHS cassettes made - one for each child and one for my parents. Unfortunately, quite a bit of the 85 minutes of the cassette was never well lit and the original film canisters are gone. Thor's team at Saving Tape miraculously made really good DVDs out of one of the VHS cassettes. One of his guys painstakingly looked at each frame and had to improve almost all of them. It's really amazing. I shared the new DVDs with my family this past Easter and they were thrilled! My folks both died in 2010, so we really treasure being able to see these movies again on DVD, with the ability to share web files with the grandkids and great grandkids! Plus, it was a very fast turnaround. I brought the VHS cassette in on a Saturday at 10:00 and had 8 copies in my hand on the following Friday! Saving Tape was very consultative, thoughtful and creative with this project. We still have some "mystery label" Super 8 film canisters and plan to bring them in to Saving Tape to determine if they can be saved, too. Should be a fun project! Julie Morton read more

Saving Tape saves memories Saving Tape understands that your home movies, tapes, slides and cassettes hold priceless memories of times shared with family and friends. Quite simply, Saving Tape preserves these memories by converting the old formats to state-of-the-art digital versions that can be enjoyed using today's wide variety of devices, from PCs and TVs to smart phones and notepads. The shop is small but very busy. Unlike larger, franchised conversion services, the owner of Saving Tape, Thor Anderson, retains the caring, personal touch. He clearly understands that he is saving histories treasured by the customer. It is this personal service, often harder to find than the old family movies in the attic, that keeps me coming back to Saving Tape each time I re-discover another hidden archive. In recent years I have asked Saving Tape to convert numerous reel-to-reel audio tapes and cassettes to CDs and VHS home-videos to DVDs. My continuing list of update requests now includes 35mm slides and even some LP records. Saving Tape makes it possible for the adventures of a lifetime to be shared and enjoyed today, tomorrow and well into the future. read more

In 2016, I was asked by mnmediaarts.org to perform an initial review of archive-quality digitization resources. I found that Saving Tape had the appropriately trained personnel and high-quality equipment - properly maintained and adjusted - to accomplish professional archival-quality digitization. Their work, in my experience, is on a par with Media Burn (Chicago) and BVAC (San Francisco). While Saving Tape may not offer all the services of these other specialty companies (baking tape, 1/2-inch reel-to-reel, mold treatment, etc.) when it comes to 3/4" Umatic and 1/2" BetacamSP, my results have been commensurate with these other two internationally trusted resources. I unhesitantly recommend Saving Tape for professional-level archiving of video, having used them extensively myself, continuing through 2018. read more

I just had about 8 hours of old 8mm film converted to DVDs and these guys did a fantastic job. I am amazed at the video quality and it looks like they cleaned up the images rather than just dumping them all to a disc without looking at it. Best of all when I mentioned that I might someday do some video editing on my Mac they offered me the original Quicktime files they used to make the DVDs free of charge. I just brought in a hard drive and they copied all 40 GB of files on to it. If I have any complaint it might be that the process is pretty expensive but I'm guessing that is the case where ever you get it done. But in the vast scheme of things it was totally worth it and I would highly recommend these guys. read more