Videotapes Are Becoming Unwatchable As Archivists Work To Save Them

[Andrew Smith]

VHS Tapes: How Archivists Are Working To Save Them : All Tech Considered : NPR

Kidd and the others are archivists and preservationists, and they're part of a group called XFR Collective (pronounced Transfer Collective). Most work professionally, but they volunteer their free time to do this. And while the mood is light, there is a sense of a deadline.

"In the heads of all Transfer Collective members, we do have kind of this 'tick-tock,'" Kidd says.

That's because research suggests that tapes like this aren't going to live beyond 15 to 20 years. Some call this the "magnetic media crisis," and archivists, preservationists, and librarians like the ones in the XFR Collective are trying to reverse it.

Will there be another wave of institutions etc realising that their video tapes need to be transferred before it is too late?

Andrew

[Bruce Dempsey]

spin them all the way forward then all the way back every year. Helps prevent seepabe

[Andrew Smith]

seepabe? Is that a Twitter thing?

Andrew

[Bruce Dempsey]

seepage is a term we used way back when tape was what you used, unless it was film

[Charles Papert]

Seepabe is the new covfefe.

[Jeff Pulera]

"I spilled covfefe on my VHS tape collection and they were ruined by the seepabe"

[Derek Heeps]

Originally Posted by Bruce Dempsey

seepage is a term we used way back when tape was what you used, unless it was film

I guess that is what we used to call 'print through' where one layer of tape on a spool magnetised the adjacent layer and the recording 'printed through' to the next layer ?

[Derek Heeps]

Originally Posted by Andrew Smith

VHS Tapes: How Archivists Are Working To Save Them : All Tech Considered : NPR



Will there be another wave of institutions etc realising that their video tapes need to be transferred before it is too late?

Andrew

While I agree that old VHS and Betamax tapes ( and others ) can degrade badly over a short period of time , I have to say that my archived Video 8 , Hi-8 , DV and HDV tapes have thus far been problem free, perhaps due to the greater recording density on metal tapes ?

The flip side is what do you propose to archive them to ?

Optical discs such as CD and DVD are known to degrade over time too , and hard discs are just magnetic recordings , only on a different medium , and not without their own problems .

Film , of course , can be attacked by moisture and fungus if not stored carefully .

Is anything truly permanent ?

[Andrew Smith]

We have this archiving discussion every now and then. I archive to two physical HDDs (a clone of each other, effectively) and that works very well for me.

Andrew

[Bob Hart]

I had two identical HDD's fail. A third also became almost unreadable, some files munted. I was lucky I had a courier drive which also had its issues which was why I had not re-used it and copied over the original material. It was usable one more time which was enough to save that archive.

[Brian Drysdale]

Originally Posted by Derek Heeps

Film , of course , can be attacked by moisture and fungus if not stored carefully .

Is anything truly permanent ?

To date B & W film with colour separation is the best method.

Nothing is truly permanent, even stone erodes.