Back in August of last year while I was in L.A., I rented an expensive VCR tape cleaner from the people at datadev.com to clean our collection of VCR tapes, some from as early as 1989! It was worth it. I've just begun digitising the tapes using a Canopus ADVC-300, and the results are great. This very moment, I'm digitising the ATV special "Leslie 張國榮 當年情" :-)