Making a Tribute Video With Old Home Movies? Fix the Old Clips First
You're putting together a video for your dad's 70th, or a slideshow of the two of you as kids for the wedding, or something for grandma's birthday. The phone clips from last summer look great. Then a clip from 1994 comes on, and suddenly everything is soft and smeary and grainy.
On a laptop you might not notice. On the big TV at the party, or the projector at the reception, the difference is a lot easier to see.
A quick note: I run VidFixr, a service that restores old videos, so I'm not neutral.
Fix the old clips before they go in
It's far easier to fix the old clips on their own than to fix the finished video. Pick the old clips you plan to use, get them restored, then put the restored versions in, whether you're making the video yourself or someone else is. If the old footage is one long file, ask whoever's editing the video to export just the parts you want, and upload those.
VidFixr does that one step. You upload a clip and choose to restore it (clean up the grain and noise and bring back detail), add color if it's black and white, or both. You'll need to make an account, and then you get a free preview of the opening few seconds of the clip, with a watermark, side by side with the original. If it looks right, you pay for that clip, download the restored file, and drop it into your video like any other clip.
What I don't do is the editing. Choosing the moments, putting them in order, the music, the titles: that's still you, or whoever is making the video. If you've hired someone, hand them the restored clips instead of the originals.
Only pay for what makes the cut
A seven- or ten-minute tribute doesn't need whole tapes, just the clips you'll actually show.
As of October 2026, restoring to 1080p (full HD) is $1.69 per minute of video, billed by the second, plus tax where it applies. Restoring and coloring black-and-white clips together is $2.18 a minute.
Each clip you upload is its own order, and each order has a $1.99 minimum. For restoration to 1080p without color, a clip under about a minute costs $1.99, a three-minute clip about $5, and a five-minute clip about $8.45. Ten clips of a minute or less would come to $19.90 before tax. Current prices are on the site.
Give yourself a few days
Tribute videos have a way of coming together the night before. Do the old clips first, so the preview, the restoring and any second thoughts happen before you're up against the party.
Check the faces
The people in the old clips need to look like themselves. When the preview comes back, look at the faces first. The preview only covers the opening of the clip, so if the person you want to check isn't in that part, it won't show you how they'll look. If someone looks off, don't use it and don't pay for it. A slightly blurry clip of your grandmother is better than a sharp one of someone who isn't quite her.
If you add color to a black-and-white clip, keep in mind the colors are a guess. Show it at the party and someone will remember the dress was blue.
When you've picked your clips, upload the first one and see how it looks before you pay for anything.