Secured Media Library Retires VHS Intake

The time has come to retire VHS support for the Secured Media Library.

Don't get us wrong, we love VHS for kitschy collections and cherished home movies. They just aren't the right format for delivering high quality, accessible learning content to your students.

Most VHS cassettes are so old that the tape is flaking, making the films unplayable. With the VHS format having been "end-of-lifed" by manufacturers almost a decade ago, playback devices are also failing. In order to avoid an unplanned loss of service to our users, we are proactively retiring analog media support.

The last day to submit VHS media for the inclusion in the Secured Media Library is August 19. You can still submit your content by mail or in person.

Besides VHS just being too old, there are lots of benefits to working with more modern content:

• DVD has almost double the resolution of VHS (480 vertical lines vs 250) and Blu-ray has over four times the resolution (1080 vs 250). Audio quality is significantly better on DVDs & Blu-rays as well.
• DVDs and Blu-rays process faster being a digital format, allowing for quicker availability.
• Captions on the DVDs and Blu Ray discs are immediately available, ensuring accessibility of your learning content.

Questions or concerns can be emailed to MediaServices@osu.edu.